Ethereum 2.0 Development Turbocharged, Ethereum Distributes $2 Million

Serenity, or Ethereum 2.0, analysts reckon, will cement Ethereum’s position as the world’s leading smart contract platform. Introducing lightning-fast transaction settlement and scalability, the eventual launch will ideally solve the blockchain trilemma. 

Therefore, to spur development towards that ideal end, the Ethereum Foundation, together with Protocol Labs and Consensys, Monday, in a blogpost, unveiled a $2 million grant “aimed at furthering Serenity (Eth2.0) development” as developers near the launch of the Beacon Chain.

Revealed, Switzerland based non-profit said the funding will be channelled to aid projects and individuals participating in the advancement of the Beacon Chain. Part of Casper, the protocol, will likely launch its testnet in a tentative date in early Jan 2020. 

The purpose of the Beacon Chain, in a paper described by Vitalik Buterin in 2014, will be to store and maintain a registry of validators, to process cross-links with the mainchain and to process the finality gadget. To access the proof-of-stake protocol, Validators must deposit ETH and launch a smart contract from the mainchain.

Harmony, Sigma and Developers Funded

In the last few months, “leading client development teams currently tasked with delivering long-standing multi-client testnets” have received grants to bolster their development. Some of these recipients include Harmony awarded $189k for their beacon chain development, Prysmatic Labs who received $725k for Prysm client development and Sigma Prime who received $485k for Lighthouse client development. 

On the research and development front, Dmitry Khovratovich, a crypto analyst, received funding for his detailed report touching on the security of Legendre pseudo-random function (PRF) and proof of custody scheme that will find widespread use during Phase 1 of Serenity. Deserving recognition, Dmitry’s Legendre PRF builds on the work of Grassi and is the only known method that proof’s custody in a shared setting.

The Ethereum 2.0 Resolve

Overly, funding from Ethereum Foundation and other desirous partners is a step in the right direction as far as solving scalability is concerned. Taking a multi-prong approach, Serenity is a combination of several EIPs with the ultimate goal of increasing the network’s on-chain throughput. Presently, the network can process 15 transactions per second with that figure dropping by more than half during peak periods.