Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Vitalik Buterin has stated that Ethereum 2.0 is still on track to launch by July 2020, as the blockchain looks to move away from the Proof of Work protocol.

Ethereum 2.0 Will Launch in July

The founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, believes that the much-delayed Ethereum 2.0 upgrade will launch by July 2020, as previously anticipated. Ethereum is upgrading its network to move away from the current Proof of Work (PoW) to the Proof of Stake (PoS) protocol. The move away from the PoW protocol will see Ether no longer mined, with the network controlled by validators approving transactions instead of miners.

Ethereum has been facing tough challenges regarding scaling the network, with some decentralized apps and smart contracts on the network moving to EOS, TRON, and other faster and more scalable dApp blockchains. The migration to the PoS protocol will be done to boost scalability on the Ethereum network and to boost the transaction speed.

Buterin, while kicking off the Consensus: Distributed event on Monday, May 11, told CoinDesk’s Michael Casey and Zack Seward that the testnet for the Ethereum upgrade is live at the moment. He added that the first phases of the implementation commenced almost a week ago.

The Ethereum 2.0 launch had been delayed several times. The upgrade, popularly called Serenity, was earlier expected to debut in January 2020. However, it was pushed back to the second quarter of the year and now to the third quarter. Developers on the Ethereum network had been eyeing July as the likely period for launching the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade, with some of them expecting it to fall on July 30, which would be the fifth anniversary of the Ethereum network.

Understanding the Changes

At the Consensus: Distributed event, Buterin mentioned that several Ethereum developer teams were working on various scaling initiatives that could be deployed once the network moves to the PoS protocol successfully. The scaling efforts include the popular sharding technique, which works by effectively dividing consensus into small groups to speed up the verification and transaction times. They are also working on other newer scaling solutions like the Optimistic Rollup, a layer-2 solution that could theoretically ensure over 1,000 transactions per second are approved, even in the current Ethereum iteration.

Gavin Wood, Ethereum co-founder, and former CTO criticized his previous project at the Consensus: Distributed event. Wood, who is now the founder of Parity Technologies, took a swipe at Ethereum for its poor governance structure, something he stated makes it impossible for the Ethereum network to act on behalf of the stakeholder community.

Buterin is not the only one who is confident that the Ethereum 2.0 launch will take place by July. Several other speakers at the event shared the same belief, with July the most realistic date for the Ethereum upgrade to debut.

Ethereum has been planning to migrate to the PoS algorithm since the cryptocurrency was created in 2015. The PoW algorithm faces challenges of scalability, and the protocol consumes too much energy due to the mining of the cryptocurrencies. However, the PoS protocol solves most of these issues, making it easier for the networks to scale and handle more transactions.

By Dov Herman

Dov is a Blockchain and Forex trading enthusiast, who spends most of his time trading and examining software who are related to cryptocurrencies and forex trading. You can follow on Dov’s reviews and articles here on TrustedBrokerz and across the web.