By Ethereum’s next major iteration, aptly known as ethereum 2.0, could see a launch as early as January 2020.
Justin Drake, an Ethereum Foundation researcher, proposed the date during a bi-weekly call between ethereum 2.0 developers after confirming that a code freeze over the first iteration of ethereum 2.0, dubbed Phase Zero was set for June 30.
Drake stated during the call:
“We still have quite a bit of time before the end of 2019, so I think looking at a target genesis date towards end of 2019 could be realistic. One thing that could work well is January 3 2020.”
However, the January 3rd date is not set in stone, regardless of reports that confirm this. Danny Ryan, another Ethereum Foundation researcher, emphasised in an email to the press that the suggested date has indeed not been finalised, and that additional work on testing ethereum 2.0 would no doubt affect the decision.
Ryan stated:
“Although it is feasible, the client teams are not yet ready to commit to a date, especially considering we haven’t entered into multi-client testnets yet. With each phase of development there are plenty of unknowns so we will just keep … tackling them as they come.”
Citing the requirements needed for a smooth Phase Zero rollout, Drake argued that researchers are currently targeting a bold, minimum amount of as much as 2 million ETH staked on the ethereum 2.0 blockchain. This, however, would mean that the forthcoming ethereum revamp would launch with over $500 million in ETH locked by prospective ethereum 2.0 validators who are intended to step into the same role as miners on the current ethereum blockchain.
Serenity:
Since the birth of ethereum, devs have been looking ahead to the imminent transition to a proof-of-stake consensus model, which has been named “Serenity”.
With proof-of-stake, both transaction validation and block creation generate rewards for users who confirm the validity of the network by locking in a sum of their tokens on the blockchain. As opposed to proof-of-work, which is currently the consensus upon which ethereum operates on, the amount of tokens staked is generally how users compete for rewards on the network instead of the amount of processing power expended.
To ensure a secure onboarding transition for the current ethereum miners on the network who are interested in making the switch to the ethereum 2.0 proof-of-stake blockchain as validators, Drake suggested that opening up the deposit contract for staked ETH during Devcon in October could be a smart move.
Drake explained:
“The idea here is to try and launch the deposit contract ahead of the targeted genesis 2024 so that we allow time for validators to make their deposits. One idea is to do a deposit contract ceremony at Devcon. One of the reasons of having this very public ceremony is so that we can all agree on the exact address of the deposit contract and avoid scam deposit contracts.”
Even though the timeline for Phase Zero of ethereum 2.0 still needs to be set in stone, the networks track record indicates that a mainnet launch next January is indeed possible for both ethereum researchers and developers.
Ethereum co-founder and CEO, Vitalik Buterin told the press:
“From my experience with [ethereum 1.0], I’d definitely say [end-of-year] 2019 / Jan 2020 is a feasible target. For comparison, the pre-audit spec freeze of ethereum 1.0 was Jan 2015, and the launch was July 2015.”
Comments