Ethereum 2.0 upgrades are not a game-changer that could bring more users

Ethereum 2.0 (Eth2) is considered the blockchain Messiah of Ethereum. Flash info: this is not the case. The long-awaited changes are not expected to solve the fundamental problems plaguing the network and preventing wider adoption.

Vitalik Buterin, the brilliant mastermind behind the Ethereum blockchain, sees the staff working with Ethereum as a bigger problem than the software itself, as he said in a recent interview with Forkast news. While the staff working on the project may or may not be problematic, this is surely not the only shortcoming. As promising as the new rollout may sound, the kind of software upgrades to introduce won’t fix the long-term issues that keep the network from reaching the heights Buterin and his followers once envisioned.

Related: The great technological exodus: the Ethereum blockchain is the new San Francisco

The major problems

Ethereum currently operates on a Proof of Work (PoW) system that only allows up to about 15 transactions per second – double that of the Bitcoin blockchain (BTC) – and is widely considered impractical for building any expansive decentralized finance, or DeFi, ecosystem. As a result, gas charges are insanely high on Ethereum. Because so few transactions can be processed per second, the price for processing faster becomes competitive. Dune Analytics research shows that 2-5% of Ethereum-based Decentralized Exchange (DEX) transactions have failed due to complications such as insufficient gas prices.

Related: Ethereum Fees Are Soaring – But Traders Have Alternatives

Another central issue that the Ethereum platform faces, but often overlooked, is poor user experience (UX) design. As a result, average users who might be interested in decentralized financial applications (DApp) or a non-fungible token market (NFT), for example, will avoid doing so because most user interfaces are not only intuitive, but also lack sufficient resources. educational resources to give users the know-how to use the platform.

Users are expected to set transaction fees in the gas price and gas limits for processing transactions. Yet how many users realistically know this without descending into the intense den of cryptocurrency jargon and information? Insider Intelligence reported that 25% of American adults don’t understand or know how to invest in digital currencies. How could users know without access to effective educational tools, for example, that sending a payment from two separate wallets to the same receiving address would not cause conflicting nonces? In all likelihood, the vast majority of regular users wouldn’t be aware of any problem to begin with.

Related: Massive adoption of blockchain technology is possible, and education is key

Ethereum 2.0

To address these long-standing issues, Ethereum supervisors announced the launch of Eth2 as a series of upgrades over its existing model, which would include the move to proof of stake (PoS ) and sharding. The concept of proof of stake states that people can mine blocks and validate transactions based on the number of coins they hold. The Ethereum Foundation has announced that it expects the switch to PoS to be completed by the end of 2021. As the Ethereum Foundation explained in a recent blog post, “Energy requirements remain unchanged ”Compared to the old PoW system.

Related: When will Ethereum 2.0 be fully released? Roadmap promises speed, but history says otherwise

Partitioning is expected to take significantly longer and, according to Ethereum’s website, “the shard chains could be shipped sometime in 2022 depending on how quickly the work is progressing” after the current Ethereum mainnet merges. with the Beacon Chain proof of stake system. Partitioning is the process of horizontally dividing a database in order to distribute the load, reduce network congestion, and increase transactions per second. The fragment chains should give Ethereum more capacity to store and access data.

The new upgrades are designed to be more environmentally friendly and speed up transaction processing. In addition to these upgrades, the blockchain programming language is expected to move from the traditional Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) to a language that can be adopted by developers using C ++ or Rust, which will simplify coding directly in a browser. While infrastructure upgrades can prove beneficial in some ways, such as improving transaction flow, they still miss the mark.

First, Ethereum 2.0 has been in the works for years, leaving many users wondering when full upgrades will take place. Proof of stake is intended to reduce mining costs and power consumption, however, network throughput will only increase if block times are reduced and / or block size is increased. Additionally, sharding only helps apps that can run independently of each other and only need to sync occasionally. But the inherent decentralized and open-source nature of DeFi means that partitioning-like processing would have to execute transactions through a chain of relays and thus slow down the entire process.

Related: Where does the future of DeFi belong: Ethereum or Bitcoin? Expert response

More importantly, on the user experience front, Ethereum is still lagging behind to a large extent that is not addressed by the rollout of the Eth2 upgrade. While Ethereum claims it will release upgrades that will address transaction processing speeds and the problem of high gasoline fees to some extent, the foundation shows a blatant disregard for the issues that, s ‘they were resolved, would open doors for more users who are currently intimidated by Ethereum. unfriendly interface.

Even when the expected upgrades are finally rolled out, users will still have difficulty defining transaction fees in gas prices and gas limits for processing transactions. Even beyond Ethereum, UX issues are not unique to Ethereum and are common to other blockchains that use EVM protocols, such as Binance Smart Chain and Polygon. Since other Ethereum-enabled channels that use the EVM protocol suffer from the same UX issues, it’s hard to envision a future in which even EVM-based channels will also be truly accessible to the average user.

In addition to persistent gas fee settings issues, transactions have long confirmation times that typically result in delays, asynchronous transaction submissions, and confirmation notices. Very often, a user will not receive a confirmation right after the transaction, leaving too much uncertainty as to whether the targeted recipient received the transaction. For users accustomed to instant results on the web like e-commerce situations, this is a strange and frustrating user experience.

Ethereum may be the darling of the blockchain world, but at some point the hype may turn out to be hot air, and it’s very likely that the long-awaited upgrade won’t attract a wider adoption. It is not clear whether the expected changes will be able to deliver on the promises of the Ethereum Foundation big bosses. Until Ethereum can fix some of the deeper issues, Eth2 is unlikely to make a significant difference to anyone outside of the Ethereum enthusiast community. For now, Ethereum 2.0 is not a must-have game changer, but rather a cosmetic upgrade.

This article does not contain any investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move comes with risk, and readers should do their own research before making a decision.

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