"Eternal" Bitcoin and Ethereum
I am often asked whether Bitcoin and Ethereum will cease to exist one day? Because this not only determines whether everyone's belief in digital currency can be persisted to the end, but also determines what position and role blockchain technology will occupy in society in the future.
If gold does not have stable physical and chemical properties, and cannot tenaciously resist the erosion of various natural environments, it is impossible to condense the 5,000-year value consensus of human society.
So what about Bitcoin and Ethereum?
Bitcoin has grown step by step from an "infant baby" when it was born in 2009 to an "unbeatable Xiaoqiang" today. On the one hand, it is inseparable from the publicity and promotion of fans. And incentives have attracted thousands of miners to join Bitcoin mining.
Miners mining is a way to gain income for themselves, but objectively it is the most powerful force to protect the entire Bitcoin network from attacks. The increase in the number of miners and the continuous improvement of the computing power of mining machines have made the entire Bitcoin network more and more resistant to attacks.
According to the latest data, the number of nodes in the Bitcoin network has exceeded 12,800. In the most popular way, to attack the Bitcoin network, hackers need to break through at least 6,400 Bitcoin nodes at the same time (that is, at least 51% node). And this is almost an impossible task, so it is no exaggeration to say that Bitcoin is the most robust information system in the world today.
But no matter how strong Bitcoin is, it is still an "information system", which means it still depends on the Internet. If one day the Internet on the earth is completely paralyzed, then Bitcoin will also cease to operate. "The Internet on the earth is completely paralyzed" sounds a bit like "Arabian Nights", but there are still a group of people in this world who have even considered this disaster, and they are wondering what to do if this "impossible disaster" happens Protect Bitcoin.
They are Blockstream Corporation.
Blockstream is the first company in the industry that aims to expand the capabilities of the Bitcoin protocol layer. The company is primarily focused on developing technology for the open-source Bitcoin blockchain. Their team includes bitcoin experts, cryptographers, cryptopunks, and many senior developers of the bitcoin protocol, so the team itself has a strong technical background.
From 2017 to 2019, the company launched a total of 5 artificial satellites into space. These five artificial satellites have covered all regions of the world except Antarctica and Greenland. That is to say, the current Bitcoin can continue to operate without relying on the Internet on the earth and relying on the satellite network.
Bitcoin has gone beyond the earth and into space. Even if one day human beings destroy the earth to nothing because of World War III, the five artificial satellites in the universe will still silently guard Bitcoin.
While some readers have strong confidence in Bitcoin, they seem less confident when it comes to Ethereum. For example, some readers are very worried about Ethereum 2.0 after reading the introduction article about Ethereum 2.0. They will worry that Ethereum will encounter various problems during the transition to 2.0, and there will be an insurmountable gap, which will eventually lead to an uncertain future for Ethereum 2.0.
Indeed, Ethereum 2.0 is a large-scale project. It is no exaggeration to say that this project is currently the most challenging project in the blockchain public chain in terms of workload and difficulty.
Such a project will inevitably encounter various accidents and difficulties in the process of progress. Therefore, in the next few years we are likely to see various negative news about Ethereum 2.0, various delays, and even the failure of various experiments.
But one thing is confirmed is that Ethereum 2.0 has been theoretically proven to be feasible under the research of the Ethereum team. So all that's left is long, hard research and development.
To ensure smooth research and development, there are two most important points: one is funds, and the other is alternative solutions. Without strong financial strength, the progress of research and development cannot be advanced, and Ethereum 2.0 will never go online; without a good alternative, once Ethereum 2.0 makes mistakes during its progress, it will be in an embarrassing situation.
For these two points, Ethereum is well prepared.
In terms of funds, according to the information disclosed by the founder of Ethereum V God in December last year, the funds held by the Ethereum Foundation at that time were calculated at the price at that time, which was close to 200 million US dollars, which was enough to maintain the development of Ethereum for 6 years. Year. According to the current plan, 6 years is enough for Ethereum 2.0 to go online. It is optimistically estimated that Ethereum 2.0 will be launched around 2023, and pessimistically estimated that it will also be launched in 2024-2025.
In terms of alternatives, the currently running Ethereum 1.0 is the best alternative for the entire project. As long as Ethereum 2.0 is not coming to an end, Ethereum 1.0 will continue to operate and maintain the current ecology. The current ecology of Ethereum 1.0 is undoubtedly the strongest in the entire public chain field. With such an alternative, the development of Ethereum 2.0 can proceed without any worries.
Therefore, in my opinion,The launch of Ethereum 2.0 will be inevitable, but it will be sooner or later.
Bitcoin created the miracle of the first stage of the blockchain, and Ethereum will recreate the miracle of the second stage of the blockchain. We will see "eternal" Bitcoin and Ethereum.
