Ethereum 2.0 Serenity
Ethereum’s next big upgrade will include proof of stake, sharding, EWASM, & more
At Devcon 4, Ethereum’s annual developer conference, Vitalik Buterin presented plans for the future of the platform (called Ethereum 2.0 or Serenity). Many of the proposed upgrades such as proof of stake have been in the pipeline for years, some as early as 2014 when the project was just getting started.
In his presentation, Vitalik walks us through the challenges faced, why it’s taken so long to bring scaling solutions to life, and the rationale behind the decisions taken. Some solutions were entirely developed and then scrapped. The talk is 30 minutes long and quite technical but worth a watch for those interested in Ethereum’s story.
Watch here: Vitalik Buterin “The road to scaling Ethereum”
Going from concept to execution takes more time and and more resources than generally expected. Things that appear logical on paper can present a whole new set of unexpected challenges at execution. Ethereum’s case is amplified by the global decentralized open source environment it’s operating in. In addition, there are no formal process for rolling out upgrades making it tough to take decisions and coordinate stakeholders. It’ll be interesting to see how the third wave of projects started by academics such as Algorand, Coda, or Oasis, will fare when it comes to executing in this competitive and fragmented environment.
From around the web
On Cryptocurrency Communities (Medium) by Nick Tomaino — “The goal of this piece is to examine the key characteristics that have led to strong cryptocurrency communities.”
What is it like to be a Bitcoin? (Medium) by Nic Carter — Explores what identity means, how it gets created, and what makes Bitcoin’s identity special.
On the Instability of Bitcoin Without Block Reward (Princeton CS) — Academic paper that looks at security implications of paying miners in block rewards vs. transaction fees. “Our key insight is that with only transaction fees, the variance of the block reward is very high due to the exponentially distributed block arrival time, and it becomes attractive to fork a “wealthy” block to “steal” the rewards therein.”
Planting Bitcoin (cont.) (Medium) by Dan Held — The full 4 posts on Bitcoin’s story are now available: Part 1 — Species, Part 2 — Season, Part 3 — Soil (new), and Part 4 — Gardening (new).
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The views expressed are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of my employer.
