ETH 2.0 (Part 1)
Ethereum 2.0 is coming soon but do you know what is it and why people are talking about it?
As you know, Ethereum is a decentralized open source blockchain that creates Smart Contract and Decentralised App (DApps) while Ether (ETH) is the cryptocurrency generated by Ethereum miners as a reward for computations performed to secure the blockchain. Its main purpose was to make the technology behind Bitcoin, better. You can read more about it here and see the comparison between ETH and Bitcoin.
So, What is ETH 2.0?
To understand the importance and purpose of ETH 2.0, it’s important to look at the predecessors. Ethereum or ETH was launched in 2015 and was heading towards its goal of becoming a decentralized global computer that could replace the centralized applications we use in our daily lives. The Ethereum community realize that there are still a lot of things to do before that goal can be met and so, there are 4 phases for Ethereum. Each phase is defined by a set of Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). It would then be put forward and approved by the Ethereum community and from the proposals, guidelines are created for various Ethereum clients and developers to follow.
1st phase of Ethereum: Frontier
Frontier was the 1st live version of Ethereum. This phase allowed for Ether to be mined, build DApps and tools, experiment of the new platform
2nd phase of Ethereum: Homestead
It was lived in 2016. It was the 1st production release of the Ethereum network. Improvements to the protocols were made which set up the foundations for future upgrades and increased the transaction speed.
Metropolis, 3rd phase of Ethereum
This is the current phase of Ethereum that we are at, the 3rd. It was released on October 2017 and it was separated into 2 parts (Byzantium and Constantinople), 5 releases. Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul, Muir Glacier and Berlin. The intention for this phase was for scalability, security, scalability, privacy, flexibility, and efficiency to the Ethereum network. This is a critical phase for maturing for the Ethereum network.
Byzantium is a lighter, faster and more secure version of the previous releases which also includes predictable gas prices and easier programming. Block reward was reduced from 5 to 3 ETH. It also improved the privacy by introducing zk-SNARKS.
Constantinople was build for further improvement. The original release date was suppose to be in November 2018 but it was postponed and released in February 2019 at 7,280,000 block. Constantinople upgrades focused on the maintenance and operations of the network. Constantinople was separated into 2 phases; St. Petersburg and Istanbul. St Petersburg reduced the block reward even more from 3 ETH to 2ETH making it cheaper.
Istanbul was then separated in 2 phases too, Multi Glacier and Berlin. Istanbul was released in December 2019. It provided more privacy and scaling capabilities as well as rebalancing gas pricing significantly with the computation cost of EVM opcodes. The main changes this has brought was improbing the denial-of-service attack resilience by making 2 layers of solution based on SNARKs and STARKs functioning well, enabling Ethereum and Zcash to allow contracts to introduce more creative functions and to interoperate.
Muir Glacier was released in January 2020, just 5 months ago! It was an unplanned fork which explains why the name is different than the rest. It comes between Istanbul and Berlin being named after the famous glacier in Alaska as it dodges the difficult bomb. The Ethereum developers forgot to adjust the feature “difficulty bomb” when Istanbul was released. This slows down block settlement to gradually push the network towards a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.This emergency fork addresses the impending ‘Ice Age’ on Ethereum Mainnet.
Berlin, the original second phase of Istanbul. It was reported earlier this month that Berlin has been called off for now. It is however, required for the release of ETH 2.0
As you can see from the phases mentioned, they are all upgrades for the Ethereum network and designed to achieve its ultimate goal, becoming a decentralized global computer that could replace the centralized applications we use in our daily lives.
Last phase of Ethereum, ETH 2.0
ETH 2.0 is the final phase for Ethereum. It is also called Serenity. People are calling it
“the most ambitious upgrade”
It is aimed to improve every aspect that is lacking in Ethereum. ETH 2.0 is planned at being released in 4 phases between 2019 till 2021
The next step on the Ethereum roadmap is Serenity, also known as ETH 2.0. This upgrade would involve a proof-of-stake beacon chain, shard chains, eWASM, and more.
Stay tuned for part 2 to know more about ETH 2.0
