Ethereum (ETH): Technological Progress Update

The plan is: Ethereum 2.0 will be launched at the beginning of 2020. Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buterin, delivered a speech during the 80,000 Hours Podcast devoted to solving the most pressing problems in the world of cryptos and shared his ambitious plans for Ethereum. Ethereum 2.0 aims to run ‘tens of thousands of transactions per second’ and the new network will facilitate several on-chain transactions while maintaining key aspects of decentralization and security. It combines important projects like Proof-of-Stake (PoS), sharding and eWSAM.

The transfer of Ethereum consensus protocol to PoS will usher in new rules for validators to secure the blockchain network. Sharding will break the network into shards that act as separate blockchains with their own smart contracts and transaction history. eWASM represents an alternative to the currently used Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). In comparison with EVM, it doubles the transaction throughput rate. When all these aspects are delivered, Ethereum 2.0 will maintain key aspects of decentralization and security while facilitating several on-chain transactions.

There are , of course, concerns around the adoption of Ethereum 2.0, as users may end up running their staking nodes on AWS or allowing exchanges to run nodes on their behalf. These methods would put the network’s security and decentralization at risk. If exchanges start pooling user balances and staking, it would pose a threat to the decentralization of the network. While Ethereum 1.0 didn’t live up to expectations, Ethereum 2.0 will actually become the world’s computer.

Currently, Blockchain networks are processing 15 transactions per second, and that is nowhere close to the desired number for adoption by leading financial institutions, governments, and banks. In the podcast, Buterin pointed out the similarities between Facebook’s stablecoin, Libra and Ethereum.

While the dev team is working on Ethereum 2.0 launch, Microsoft and hubii officially announced Nahmii, a new scaling solution focused on making Ethereum ready for enterprise-level applications. More details will be released at an upcoming blockchain event co-hosted by hubii and Microsoft.

Here’s a quick technical progress update on other projects:

• Upcoming hard fork Istanbul is going to be released in two different parts. This hard fork is scheduled for October 2019 and currently consists of 30 proposed EIPS, including the controversial and well known EIP 1057. This EIP has been a hot topic in Ethereum communities and has received much debate. It is essentially designed to remove the advantage that ASICs have over other mining hardware. ASICs are Application Specific Integrated Circuits and are normally designed to work with only one hashing algorithm.
• Pantheon v1.2.2 was released and Ethereum client became the first public blockchain on Hyperledger, in the form of ConsenSys’ Pantheon. The team is unveiling over $2M in foundation-led and co-funded grant funding aimed at furthering Serenity (ETH 2.0) development as they move nearer to the launch of the Beacon Chain. Since the network’s inception, developers have been looking ahead to an eventual transition to Serenity.

Both block creation and transaction validation in proof-of-stake generate rewards for users who attest to the validity of the blockchain by locking a portion of their tokens holdings on the network. Unlike proof-of-work, which is the model Ethereum currently leverages, the amount of tokens staked is primarily how users compete for network rewards as opposed to computational energy expended.

There are a lot of exciting things in store for Ethereum if the announcements are true and the development teams can deliver. We’ve got our eye on the progress of the October hardfork and will continue to report on the happenings around the blockchain.





Disclaimer
Content provided by CryptoTraderNews is for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. All information is of a general nature. As always, there is risk with any investment. In exchange for using our products and services, you agree not to hold CryptoTraderNews Pro, its affiliates, or any third party service provider liable for any possible claim for damages arising from decisions you make based on information made available to you through our services.