Ethereum 2.0 is about to be released, but how long will it take before it is officially put into use?

Original title: "Ethereum 2.0 Is Set to Launch, But It Won』t Be Ready to Use"

Original author: Robert Stevens

Original translation: 0x13, rhythm BlockBeat s

summary

-ETH 2.0 is about to be released.

-The process starts when enough ETH is locked in its smart contract.

-People familiar with the matter said that the launch of ETH 2.0 is unlikely to be delayed. However, it will take a long time for users to use ETH 2.0 in the same way as they currently use ETH 1.0.

ETH 2.0 is the long-awaited upgrade to the Ethereum mainnet that will provide scalability to the congested blockchain network. The Ethereum Foundation announced on November 5 that ETH 2.0 is expected to be launched on December 1 when 16,384 validators have collectively staked 524,288 ETH.

When validators stake about $200 million worth of ETH into the ETH 2.0 smart contract, "Phase 0" will start, allowing the blockchain to begin operating. But this is only the first step in a long process, and only after several years will ETH 2.0 function like today's ETH 1.0 mainnet.

But if all goes well, it will be worth the wait. ETH 1.0 currently processes 14 transactions per second, which is a common complaint among companies trying to profit from blockchains. Compared with ETH 2.0, ETH 1.0 is much slower. In the future, ETH 2.0 will be able to handle 100,000 transactions per second.

Ethereum 2.0 will move the blockchain to a PoS consensus mechanism, where transactions are verified by people who hold a large amount of Ether. This is different from the existing PoW consensus mechanism, which rewards the most powerful miners.

When it goes live around December, all the Phase 0 ETH 2.0 blockchain can do is validate blocks. “None of the core functionality that people think of as Ethereum is part of Phase 0,” said Tim Ogilvie, CEO of Staked, a company that handles servers and infrastructure on behalf of stakers. “People can’t send or receive ETH, can’t participate in DeFi or other smart contract activities.”

“What Phase 0 does is establish a consensus mechanism that protects the security of the network and has enough funds to protect the entire assets of ETH. Later, Phase 1 will allow users to send or receive ETH in smart contracts and introduce sharding, a technology that speeds up blockchains. Phase 2 will reintroduce the full smart contract functionality that we used with ETH1,” said Scott Burke, CEO of ETH-based subscription company Groundhog.

Ogilvie said the most aggressive estimates for phase one are six months and two years for phase two: “The more conservative estimates are much longer. So, the full transition from ETH 1.0 to ETH 2.0 will take several years.”

What could go wrong with a Phase 0 release?

“There aren’t many things that can go wrong right now. There are already a lot of community testnets, including two specifically created to test the origin of the beacon chain, and huge bonuses have been paid to individuals who found client problems,” said Richard Ma, CEO of Quantstamp, which has audited multiple ETH 2.0 clients.

Ogilvie said that “hundreds” of bugs, “maybe thousands,” have been fixed in the testnet over the past year or so. But even if testers fix those bugs, “there will probably be a lot of other bugs.” Most of these are minor issues, Ogilvie said, but “more of them only become apparent when you stop using test coins and start using real money.” Still, he’s not worried.

Will that delay it? “It depends on whether individuals are willing to run validators,” Ma said. If people don’t provide about $200 million in ETH, the process won’t start. Ogilvie said one problem could be that the yields offered by ETH 2.0 clients are low compared to the lucrative yields offered by newer ETH 1.0-based DeFi protocols. And it will be a long time before stakers can withdraw their staked ETH from ETH 2.0 clients.

“The smartest investors are probably going to wait a while while they figure out what this looks like,” said Ogilvie, who believes that if there is a gap, ETH advocates and the Ethereum Foundation will fund the project.

So far, about 1% of the funds needed to launch the network have been deposited. You can see how close Phase 0 is to launch at depositcontract.eth, a user-friendly Ethereum address minted by the Ethereum Name Service.

Brantly Millegan, director of operations at Ethereum Name Service, said he is excited to play a small role in the launch of ETH 2.0, but his company is currently dependent on ETH 1.0 and it will be several years before it can benefit from the scaling potential of ETH 2.0.

Millegan added that ETH 2.0 is just "one piece of the puzzle" to solve Ethereum's bottleneck problem. Other expansion solutions, such as layer protocols, side chains, etc. can all play a role. He said that each approach is being advanced "simultaneously."