OKEx Insights: ETH2.0 Beacon Chain will be launched soon, these key points you must know
According to Cryptopotato news, ETH 2.0 developer Ben Edgington said that the 1.0.0 version candidate version 0 of the beacon chain Beacon Chain has been released, which contains many improvements and configuration adjustments. The Boneh-Lynn-Shacham (BLS) signature scheme has also been upgraded to enhance resistance to denial-of-service attacks. The "genesis" of Beacon Chain may be launched in 6-8 weeks, which is still an estimate and there is no official release date.
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Image source: OKEx
Why is the beacon chain so important?
For a long time, Ethereum's proof of stake has been criticized by people as a shortcoming, and the development team of Ethereum has been working hard to solve the problem.
V God, the founder of Ethereum, said that the emergence of the beacon chain will fundamentally improve the performance and scalability of Ethereum.
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Image source: OKEx Insights
Image source: OKEx Insights
Image source: OKEx Insights
Through the beacon chain, PoS (Proof of Stake) can be realized, allowing the verifier to replace the role of the miner, participate in the pledge system, and become the builder of the chain. At the same time, it will be an index for storing the state of the fragmentation.
How to become a chain builder
PoW (Proof of Work) is the mining reward algorithm used by Bitcoin. The proof of work requires all nodes to solve cryptographic problems. That is, miners can get more rewards by solving cryptographic problems in a faster time. However, such an algorithm does not better reflect the ability of miners. It requires miners to spend money to buy larger and better equipment to solve cryptographic problems faster, but this makes miners overwhelmed.
In order to solve this problem, the industry is looking for a better way, that is, the PoS (Proof of Stake) mentioned above. The proof of stake is in the form of elections, in which any node is randomly selected to verify the next block. There are no miners in Proof of Stake, but new blocks are made by validators. Validators are not chosen completely at random. To become a validator, you need to deposit a certain amount of currency as equity in the node network, which can be understood as a deposit.
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Image source: OKEx Insights
The beacon chain is one of the basic technologies to realize proof of rights and interests. By deploying a registrar contract on Ethereum to achieve symbiosis between the existing chain and the beacon chain in the future, and pledge 32ETH in the registrar contract, you can get a receipt, which you can participate in as a validator qualifications. It should be noted that this is a one-way process, once participating, users will not be able to withdraw from the existing system to PoW.
After the verifier completes the registration on the beacon chain, it will be randomly assigned to verify for one or two shards. The verifier will combine the data on their shard with the data on the beacon chain to form a new block; when the block proposed by the verifier has not been assigned, the verifier can agree/reject other verifiers proposed block.
It needs to be emphasized that the beacon chain is not connected to the data we usually use. It does not store any information that exists on the current Ethereum, including account balances, token contracts, dApp status, etc. Only the validator list and Attestation (proof information) are stored in the beacon chain
Attestation
Attestation (certification information) is the hash value signed by the verifier, and they record the state of the shard to which they belong in real time. A hash value is relative to what it records. When you record each content, the system will generate a string of numbers and letters based on the content or data you entered, which is the hash value. Once the original data changes, the output characters will change to form a new hash value. Therefore, we no longer need to inquire deeply about the change records of each shard. We only need to observe the hash value to know that the total data or content of the process has been changed. When the verifier finds a change, it will report the change to the beacon chain, so as to realize asynchronous (ie non-real-time) communication between shards according to the change.
Beacon Chain Committee Mechanism
After understanding the basic operating principle of the beacon chain, the operation mode of the beacon chain committee is also particularly important.
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Image source: Ethereum China
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The Beacon Chain optimizes the PoS mechanism from being the builder of the chain, the allocation mechanism and verification method of the Beacon Chain Committee, and realizes information synchronization from Attestation storage, reducing information gaps, and will fundamentally improve the performance and scalability of Ethereum.
Image source: Weibo
Image source: Weibo
The author believes that from the perspective of the operation principle and mechanism of the beacon chain, the birth of the beacon chain can effectively promote the transformation of the current Ethereum from PoW to PoS, promote a fair mechanism for Ethereum mining, reduce Gas fees, and reduce mining costs. cost. At the same time, the change from "miner" to "verifier" is also very attractive to miners. The combination of the two factors may attract more miners to support the advancement of Ethereum 2.0. And this trend is expected to promote the rise of Ethereum tokens, bringing a wave of spring in the cold winter. However, the market is volatile, and any factor will cause fluctuations in the currency price. Investors can only use technology updates as part of the reference factors, and investment needs to be cautious.
