Ethereum 2.0 Will Go Operational Sooner Than Expected

Although the release of the Ethereum 2.0 system was originally slated to go live on the 3rd of January, the work on the big update to the blockchain behind the second biggest cryptocurrency — and the basis for many other blockchain-related projects — has gone smoothly and will be launching a little over a month earlier.

The test launch — named Medalla —  concluded in August with satisfying results. The team at Ethereum believes that the deposit contracts will attract investors once they are convinced that the tools are safe and that Ethereum 2.0 is the way forward.

From Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake

The biggest update to the Ethereum Blockchain will be the switch to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) version — which, unlike Proof-of-Work (PoW), will allow participants to link their cryptocurrency to the Ethereum network. 

Basically, a component of computational power in a PoW system is tied to a unit of mining power.

However, in a PoS system, the unit of mining power will be tied to a component of value  — in this case, a crypto token.

In order to ensure the Ethereum 2.0 launch goes as planned, almost 16,384 validators must stake 32 ETH or more. 

“Pre-genesis, the only active players on the Eth2 side are the beacon nodes; the validators spring into action immediately after the genesis event. The beacon nodes maintain the state of the system and talk to each other in a peer-to-peer network.”

Once this amount has been deposited, the Ethereum 2.0 launch will be complete. 

Vitalik Buterin — the man behind Ethereum — has made 100 transactions of 32 ETH himself to kick things off.

Whether the massive overhaul to Ethereum’s system will eventually cause Bitcoin to be outclassed remains to be seen. However, Ethereum has already served as the basis for countless other projects, and the way their blockchain is built encourages developers to take the project further —  and gives them all the tools necessary to do so.