Ever since the Ethereum network launched its Beacon Chain for staking in December 2020, enthusiasts have been waiting for the day when the chain will finally be merged with the Ethereum mainnet, making the Proof of Stake consensus the only mechanism by which new ETH is available. created. While unfortunately a specific date for the merger has yet to be announced, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has now said that “hopefully we will merge pretty soon.”
In a recent podcast, the engineer also complained about the constant delays this transition faced, adding:
“If we really want to fully achieve that vision, I still think there’s a lot of work to do that we’d hoped would be completed now or even by 2016.”
Buterin also touched on the aspects of transition that have yet to be completed, most of which has to do with testing. Since most blockchain programs are used by an unlimited number of people entrusting millions of dollars, constant testing of software to perfection is a necessary step, although one wants to fall victim to an exploit similar to the one the Ethereum uses. network is used to.
Nevertheless, Buterin said that, aside from testing, “there are already some basic testing stats and full implementations of everything that needs to be done before the merger,” including consensus clients and execution clients, the latter of which has been run under some constraints. to him.
However, what requires most testing is the initial synchronization process, which Buterin explained as the mechanism behind the integration of new nodes into the network and the contract code. Of course, there are plenty of other subtleties and technicalities that need to be taken care of, Vitalik said, adding that his team believes the merger could happen sometime between June and August this year.
Happy Birthday Beacon Necklace!
Here’s an updated roadmap for where the Ethereum protocol development is and what’s coming in what order.
(I’m sure this misses a lot, like all diagrams, but it covers a lot of the important stuff!) pic.twitter.com/puWP7hwDlx
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) Dec 2, 2021
It should be noted here that the merger is only one of the first steps in Buterin’s vision for Ethereum, and the network could be constantly developed in the near future. While the exec had previously unveiled a roadmap on Twitter outlining the post-merger phases, he explained the same thing as:
“..the merger that was basically proof of stake, the wave that’s increasing the capacity of the chain, basically doing sharding and doing a little bit more stuff before and after. Then there’s the berm, that’s vertical trees that are basically a technology that makes it easier to validate the chain… Then there’s the purge that makes the chain lighter and the code wider and then there’s the splurge that just everything else.”
The director did agree that although there were many buzzwords and additional improvements in the pipeline, such as ZK Snarks, EVM build and separation of proposer builder. If only the merge with POS and sharding are implemented, “we’re still in a good place.” This could be the case, as the biggest problems Ethereum currently faces is its reliance on mining and lack of scalability, which sharding should solve.
Therefore, Vitalik believes that Ethereum will “certainly be big enough to” become the sole transaction layer for the Internet or global financial activities once the peak phase of its transition occurs.
This post Is Ethereum ‘Still In A Good Phase’ If Not Everything Goes As Planned
was published first on https://ambcrypto.com/is-ethereum-still-in-a-good-phase-if-not-everything-goes-as-planned/
