December 1, 2020 | AtoZ Markets – The beacon chain, which is the core of the next-generation blockchain "Ethereum 2.0 (Serenity)" of Ethereum has been launched at 12:00 UTC on December 1.
GENESIS: Ethereum 2.0 has officially launched! Today @ethereum has entered the first phase of its long-awaited second era, which brings a massive amount of upgrades and shifts the protocol to proof of stake ?
— Bitstamp (@Bitstamp) December 1, 2020
Behold the ETH 2.0 Beacon Chain in action: https://t.co/YhhO9qEmOH pic.twitter.com/0CcIMVStGG
Congrats on the launch all!
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) December 1, 2020
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“Congratulations to everyone on the launch!” Wrote Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin.
According to the observations of Bison Trails protocol specialist Viktor Bunin, there are more than 21,000 validators in the network. User engagement is growing steadily.
?? eth2 is live ??
— Viktor Bunin (@ViktorBunin) December 1, 2020
? 21,000+ validators
? Rising participation rate 82% -> 85% -> 88%
? Several days worth of an activation queue
Congratulations to everyone that helped make this happen.
What is Ethereum 2.0?
Ethereum 2.0 is a major network upgrade aimed at improving ETH scalability, making it more secure and efficient in terms of energy consumption without sacrificing decentralization of accessibility features. Apart from that, the new version will alter Ethereum's monetary policy, reducing its annual inflation to 1% and mining algorithm from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS).
Ethereum 2.0 will become a unique self-sustaining financial ecosystem with an option to earn passive income for ETH holders who are willing to lock in their Ethereum tokens to validate blocks for rewards. ETH developers hope this solution will allow to increase the network speed and make it more efficient.
Ethereum 2.0 phase zero launched - What's next?
Following the launch of Ethereum 2.0, the next step will be towards improving the Ethereum network with the creation of shard chains. This full implementation will take about two years according to the current forecast, and will be prepared in the roadmap after 2021. This is an important upgrade that will help improve the speed of the network. The sharding will happen in 2021, followed by phase 1.5. In this stage, ETH 1.0 and ETH 2.0 will meet.
The roadmap after the beacon chain is as follows.
- Phase 0, known as the Beacon Chain, will work as a coordination stage and it won't change anything about the current usage on the Ethereum blockchain. The Beacon Chain will coordinate the expanded network of shards and stakers, laying the ground for a secure, sustainable and scalable Ethereum blockchain.
- Phase 1, known as Shard Chains, is scheduled for launch somewhere in 2021. The technology realized in this phase will improve Ethereum's scalability and capacity. Apart from that, Shard chains will spread the network's load across 64 new chains, making it easier to run a node with low hardware requirements.
- Phase 2, or the Docking Mainnet, will occur in 2022 and eventually dock the existing Ethereum mainnet with ETH 2.0 upgrades rolled out during the previous stages. Basically, ETH 1.0 mainnet will be merged with ETH 2.0 beacon chain and sharding system and mark the full transition to proof of stake.
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