What does Ethereum 2.0 really mean?
Editor's Note: This article comes fromFirst class warehouse blockchain research institute (ID: first_vip1), reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
Ethereum 2.0
Editor's Note: This article comes from
First class warehouse blockchain research institute (ID: first_vip1)
, reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
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Ethereum 2.0
Ethereum 2.0 is often mentioned by major media, and it represents the future of Ethereum.
No blockchain has survived as many trials and tribulations as Ethereum. As the birthplace of most tokens and smart contracts, Ethereum has an indescribable charm for developers and project parties. But ethereum hasn't really taken shape yet, and it needs to move beyond the "tranquility" stage.
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Why is there ETH 2.0?
Chromatic Capital believes that Ethereum can only process 15 transactions per second. If complex applications are expanded, it will be a huge expense, while Visa can process thousands of transactions per second. The reason why it is "slow" is that Ethereum needs to maintain decentralization.
By design, supernodes, "consensus nodes with sufficiently powerful servers," can be relied upon to process every transaction. This solution is simple, and Ethereum can stay as it is, just frequently parallelize client processing.
But ethereum developers rejected the idea, largely because it would sacrifice decentralization and censorship resistance. There is an "impossible triangle" problem in the blockchain: decentralization, scalability, and security, and the three ebb and flow. And Ethereum is the foundation of all "second-generation blockchain" projects, such as IOTA, which claims to be able to solve the trilemma. Most attempts to solve the trilemma, including Ethereum 2.0, attempt to replace mining with another consensus mechanism.
Therefore, the old design of Ethereum (first-class position: here refers to PoW mining) is more or less seen as a failure. According to Colored Capital, Ethereum 2.0 is "a completely different project, adopting a paradigm from 0 to 1, just like the blockchain dominates the chain." Ethereum 2.0 is not just an upgrade, it also reshapes the blockchain. blockchain. Its purpose is to make Ethereum more secure, scalable to handle thousands of transactions, and improve programmability without compromising decentralization.
Ethereum 2.0 mainly solves the "impossible triangle" of the blockchain through three major technologies, namely: sharding technology, proof of equity, and a new virtual machine.
Phase 0: Beacon Chain
Sharding is a technique for splitting a database across multiple servers, in other words, dividing the database into different partitions. It's like having multiple partitions on a computer's disk, including disk C and disk D, but they all reside on the same disk. In this way, the blockchain is divided into several parts, but remains consistent. "Shards" are as secure as the entire blockchain.
Proof of equity means that miners are no longer used to produce blocks, but are replaced by Stakers, that is, nodes with a certain amount of ETH. This not only saves electricity, but also can quickly determine the finality of transactions, ensuring the decentralization of verifiers to a greater extent. For many years, Ethereum developers have been working on a consensus mechanism that quickly confirms transactions and constrains Stakers to abide by transaction rules. After converting to PoS, Ethereum can confirm the finality of transactions within a few seconds, and at the same time prevent double-spending attacks.
The new virtual machine allows developers to create their own execution environments. This enforces the rules of other blockchains, such as BTC or Zcash. Therefore, Ethereum can become a common structure for different blockchains.
These three technologies can be described as a strong combination. At present, there is no blockchain with a complete sharding function, and PoS has been questioned by many people. Ethereum exerts its pioneering spirit to solve several major problems in the development of the blockchain, thereby creating a framework that eliminates central obstacles and maintains the "impossible triangle" trade-off of the blockchain.
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The Beacon Chain manages the "Caspar Proof-of-Stake" protocol. It records validators and their stakes, randomly selects block validators, and randomly assigns them a shard chain. The Beacon Chain employs consensus rules, enforces sanctions against dishonest validators, and acts as a linking hub between the various shards.
Phase 1: Shard Chain
Proof-of-stake voting, where validators on Ethereum 2.0 use their tokens to vote on so-called "certificates". Once enough certificates have been collected for a block of a shard chain, the shard chain receives a so-called cross-chain link on the beacon chain. From the moment it is received, the block is finalized, which means that the block can no longer be revoked. Now the blocks on the shard chain have the same security as the beacon chain (that is, the main chain).
In return, validators receive ETH2, the native currency on the Beacon Chain. In the long run, ETH2 will replace ETH, and there is no upper limit for issuance, thus ensuring the long-term security of blocks.
The beacon chain will be launched in the second or third quarter of 2020, that is, the start-up phase 0. At that time, a beacon client can be run, and the user will send his own ether (ETH1) to the beacon chain and convert it on the beacon chain for ETH2. The conversion can only be performed in one direction, so ETH1 is indeed destroyed.
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Phase 1: Shard Chain
Starting around 2021, the first batch of shard chains will be put into use. These shard chains will initially store data in raw form. They cannot process data according to certain consensus rules, nor can they display user address balances, and are only used to test the shard chain architecture or store data to help dapps scale better.
The focus of phase 1 is the beacon chain: the beacon chain starts to refer to the state of the shard chain through cross-chain links to determine the final state. The beacon chain can be thought of as a blockchain, and the shard chain (not yet functional) surrounding the beacon chain continuously interacts with it.
At this stage, Ethereum will establish and operate a new proof-of-stake system, setting up the beacon chain as the control center of various data chains, which is a huge challenge.
At this stage, the eth1 chain and eth2 chain will continue to work in parallel. From Phase 2, Ethereum will be a little exciting.
Phase 2: Realizing the Vision
According to the roadmap, in the stage of "realizing the true vision of ETH2": the shard chain starts to process transactions, and the ETH2 network supports running real applications. In a later stage, the smart contract will be activated on the shard chain. A new execution environment is formed, and the shard chain can enable its own rules, such as applying the rules of chains such as Bitcoin, Zcash, or ETH1.
Color Capital explained it this way:
"Just as ETH1 escaped from Bitcoin to realize smart contracts on the chain, ETH will escape from ETH1 and redefine the essence of blockchain computing."
Phase 2 combines the functionality of all chains. The shard chain, which was used purely for data storage in the past, is becoming a structural chain, connecting the state of the smart contract with the consensus process. Developers can build their own DApps on one shard, and Ethereum transforms into a multi-chain system controlled by the Beacon Chain.
Phase 2 is expected to be realized in late 2021 or early 2022. According to the roadmap, many aspects of Phase 2, such as the concept of an execution environment, are "still under intensive research and development."
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Stage 3-6
According to the plan, Ethereum 2.0 will be launched in 6 stages. However, starting with Phase 3, according to the roadmap, "any predictions are only speculation and plans are likely to change". In phase 3, ETH1 may die. However, if ETH1 really exits and ETH2 replaces ETH1, all ether and users will gradually migrate from eth1 to eth2, but it is still uncertain.
Ethereum's Github-Wiki describes 4 stages that are still uncertain:
Phase 3: Light Client State Protocol
The client has been minimalized to reduce the size of the Ethereum state carried by a single node, but not completely remove the state.
