Ethereum 2.0 goes live with the launch of Beacon Chain

Ethereum 2.0’s first step – the massive upgrade meant to revolutionize the Ethereum network – went live at noon UTC today.

The Ethereum 2.0 upgrade promises to bring several major improvements to the Ethereum network, including the introduction of a proof-of-stake mechanism, which is expected to resolve some of Ethereum’s long-standing scalability issues. And today, the first big part of the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade – known as Phase 0 – has kicked off.

“This is a great testament to the Ethereum community,” said Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum. today, before launch. Then he added, “Congratulations on the launch everyone!“

“The key to the health of this thing is that we’re seeing over two-thirds participation,” said Danny Ryan, principal researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, on the Ethereum 2.0 livestream. He pointed out that there will be no block before slot 1 and that the blockchain will see finality at the end of the third epoch (around half an hour after launch). You can follow the progress here.

“I’m like hyped, it’s four in the morning and I’m excited,” Ryan said, adding, “We have all the settings and I’m very excited. I’m very confident in the launch, but if something goes wrong no, I’m very confident in the engineer’s ability to fix it.

But he recognized that it had been a long time coming. “We thought we were going to launch in December of last year,” he said, adding, “It’s been a trip.”

The first eligible block created by a validator was location 1. The person who validated it signed it, “Mr. F was there”. The livestream attendees speculated on what that might mean. The fourth block was signed “Welcome to the New Beginning”.

Hudson Jameson later clarified that this was not a reference to arrested development, but had two meanings. “For the record: Mr. F is a reference to Queen and Vitalik’s autograph, ”he tweeted.

The launch of the beacon chain is now confirmed. There are over 21,000 active validators on the network and each epoch has a success rate of over 80%. However, validators regularly miss blocks.

What is Ethereum 2.0?

This launch is phase 0 of the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade and introduces the Beacon chain.

According to the Ethereum website, “The Beacon Chain will introduce proof of stake to Ethereum. It’s a new way for you to help keep Ethereum secure. ”

“This lays the foundation for a new home for Ethereum that is scalable, safer, and more sustainable,” Ryan said on the livestream.

Here, proof of stake refers to the concept that a person can mine or validate transactions on the Ethereum network if they own – or have wagered – a certain amount of Ethereum. Users will need to wager a total of at least 32 Ethereum ($ 19,000) in order to validate transactions.

According to Glassnode, nearly 900,000 Ethereum have been staked so far, which is well above the minimum amount required for phase 0.

It is hoped that the more people who participate in Ethereum’s new proof-of-stake network, the safer the network will be. Besides the obvious fact that users will be deterred from attacking a network they are located in, this is also because the Beacon chain will eventually randomly assign stakers to validate fragment chains.

Fragment chains are a way to reduce network congestion, as well as increase the total number of transactions per second. By assigning biters to validate fragment chains, the Ethereum network prevents biters from getting along and taking control of a fragment. In theory, there is less than one one in a trillion chance it could happen.

It is important to note that the Beacon Chain will first exist separately from the current Ethereum mainnet, but the plan is to “dock”The main network in the proof of stake system. And at some point in the future, the two will be magically aligned.