Why Ethereum v2 matters

In recent days, Prysmatic Labs "blockchain development team has released the latest version of Ethereum 2.0, which has recently been reviewed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. We believe Ethereum will reach a point where no other smart contract platform will be able to hold a candle to it. Once fully implemented, Ethereum "will be the next generation of blockchain, which is the most advanced, secure and scalable platform for smart contracts," Buterin told an audience in Hong Kong last year at Token2049 in March.

There are currently 18,667 active validators on the network, with nearly 1,000 more vying for a spot, according to the Ethereum Foundation.

This makes sense, as Ethereum is already the second most popular cryptocurrency in the world, behind Bitcoin. If it works, it could seriously question the viability of the would-be Ethereum killers, who are betting their future on pushing it off its throne. It could also put Ethereum users through some annoying network congestion when they start looking for alternatives.

Already in 2017 it was announced that the blockchain would find its way to version 2.0, and the developers have since been working on building a new blockchain called Ethereum 2. When fully implemented, the time it takes to confirm a transaction is reduced from minutes to about half a minute, about the time it takes to cancel a credit card.

On Tuesday, May 7th, Prysmatic Labs published a blog post announcing their release. This week Paul Hauner, the lead developer of Lighthouse, posted a video revealing the ETH2.0 Testnet.

Responding to a thread on the original video, Hauner said: 'The testnet plays with simulated ether. This is a step forward, however it is still far away from a full-fledged aether-network.

Ethereum is based on the Ethereum blockchain, the world's largest open source blockchain system, which uses a network of multiple nodes with intelligent contracts and a decentralized database. Sharing databases on the ETH2.0 PoW blockchain addresses scalability, while the transition from proof-of-stakes (PoS) to proof-of-work (POW), where qualified nodes validate transactions, addresses this issue.

However, Ethereum provides a basis for building decentralized applications (dApps), but the current blockchain is not able to support dapps itself. Ethereum 2.0 is expected to be the first major update to the Ethereum blockchain, also known as Serenity. The proof-of-stakes algorithm will be implemented in the future and will consolidate its composure with the introduction of Beacon Chain.

It is also worth noting that almost the entire new consensus algorithm of the ETH is based on PoS. Although we have not yet begun to describe the future architecture of Ethereum, sufficient details have already been provided.

The Beacon Chain will act as a "detour reward" for the existing ETH 1.0 chain, offering detour rewards for both new and old users of the chain.

It may be possible in the short term to switch the ETH from the Ethereum 2.0 blockchain to the old Ethereum blockchain as it is under the current Ethereum 1.1 design, but it will probably take years before it is fully integrated into the new PoS network (see below). This is because the added complexity of creating a two-way bridge poses safety risks to both chains.

Some reports suggest that the high transaction throughput associated with the new Proof of Stake (PoS) security model promises a higher level of security than the current Ethereum 1.1 protocol. AMA attendees included leading smart contract blockchain experts Danny O'Brien, Mike Hearn and Peter Todd, as well as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

Eth 2.0, often called Serenity, has been in the pipeline since the launch of Ethereum in 2015 and is currently being developed at the University of California, San Diego.

However, the fast lane for Serenity is on a faster track than that, and Vitalik Buterin has proposed a quick way to migrate data to ETH 2.0, meaning the long-awaited upgrade may come sooner than expected. Things are starting to look for Ethereum, as it is wonderfully easy to make the transition from Ethereum 1.1 to the new version of Ethereum Blockchain as simple as possible.

Ethereum is a large network with thousands of users, and contrary to what critics and bitcoin maximalists say, an upgrade of this magnitude will not happen overnight. It's big, it's in a revolution, but it's also a big step in the right direction for the future of Ethereum.

If you are familiar with developments in the tech world, you already know what Ethereum is and why Ethereum 2.0 is a big deal; if not, it is a blockchain platform proposed in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum and one of the world's most respected and supported blockchains. Over the course of two years, he and seven other developers created Ethereum as a robust Smart Contract platform on which anyone can develop and operate decentralized applications.

Blockchain, Dfinity, PoW, PoS, Smart Contracts, Dfinity, ETHv2