The Ethereum Foundation recently published a kanban board that lets you know how much time is left for the launch of Phase 0 of Ethereum 2.0 or “Serenity”. According to its proponents, this update will introduce the use of Proof of Stake (PoS) as a consensus mechanism.
The board, published on Github, shows a set of activities that must be completed to achieve the launch of Phase 0. This phase aims to implement the Beacon Chain, the network in charge of storing and managing the registry of validator nodes, the first nodes to implement Proof of Stake to record their transactions.
As explained in the Ethereum 2.0 “Roadmap”, the Beacon Chain will run in parallel with the current Ethereum blockchain to ensure there is no disruption to the data. To achieve this, several macro-objectives are established on the board some of which are marked as “required”. For example, one of the required targets is Medal; the test network that is currently being evaluated and that to be approved must run well for 10 weeks.
Misc-testing, Infra, Security, Specs are other sections that mark with the word “required” and within them, different tests and audits that are under observation.
However, the table has not been updated for 15 days, and nothing ensures that more required activities adhere to the board. If more tasks sum up, the wait for the long-awaited update will be lengthened.
From your Ethereum 2.0 client
Prysmatic Labs is one of the companies currently developing an Ethereum 2.0 client called Prysm. Recently, they announced that they contributed to some of the sections that appear on the kanban board and they say that their client could be ready by November of this year.
For example, they announced the performance of a security audit, the implementation of an API, and the programming of the voluntary exit of the validator nodes. All the code they have provided has been audited by Trial of Bits and Quantstamp, two computer security companies, to ensure their immunity from denial of service attacks and others.
Ethereum 2.0: what the community was waiting for
The Ethereum 2.0 implementation is one of the most anticipated events by the Ethereum community since it would come to attend to the saturation of the network. Currently, the Ethereum blockchain uses Proof of Work as a consensus mechanism and supports 14 transactions per second. However, the growth of DeFi has caused the percentage of network utilization to reach up to 97%. This significantly increases the price that users must pay in transaction fees.
This is why Vitalik Buterin and other developers are betting on the change to Proof of Stake. According to Buterin, this new blockchain would allow increasing the number of transactions processed to 100,000 per second. Besides, it would considerably reduce the electricity consumption associated with the mining process.
Ethereum 2.0 is an update that received an announcement for several years, but it seems that the final stage is finally underway. Recently, Justin Drake, Ethereum researcher, and Vitalik Buterin, founder of the project, could not agree on the launch date. However, it seems that 2021 will be the deadline in which we will finally see, at least, the first part of this update.
By: Jenson Nuñez.
