Ethereum 2.0: A Scalability Upgrade

Ethereum 2.0: A Scalability Upgrade

As the most significant upgrade in Ethereum's mainnet history, Ethereum 2.0 uses a new architecture and technologies such as sharding to address the long-standing scalability issues, improve security and programmability.

However, the upgrade timeline has been repeatedly delayed due to the enormous engineering effort required. Although Ethereum 2.0 is moving forward, the upgrade's progress is considered slow by some.

With the current blockchain supporting only around 14 transactions per second, Ethereum 2.0 is facing pressure from the increasing stablecoin issuance and DeFi boom. Ethereum GAS usage and network fees have surged to historic highs, with investors injecting about $8 billion in crypto assets into Ethereum DeFi projects over the past three months, pushing Ethereum's capacity to the limit.

Therefore, some believe that once Ethereum 2.0 is launched, all these problems will be solved. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin claimed that the new blockchain version could increase transaction speed to 100,000 transactions per second and would move from proof of work (PoW) blockchain to proof of stake (PoS) blockchain.

There are differing opinions on the specific launch date for Ethereum 2.0. Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake said in July that while Buterin and other Ethereum researchers are confident that Ethereum 2.0 will be completed this year, he believed that the likelihood of Ethereum 2.0 launching in January 2021 is higher.

Currently, Ethereum 2.0 is undergoing testing on the Medalla public testnet, and more work remains to be done before its official launch, including audits, optimizations, and the migration of Ethereum 1.0 to Ethereum 2.0.

The Medalla Testnet for Ethereum 2.0 is Now Live!

The Medalla testnet is now available, offering a public platform for ethereum 2.0 nodes around the world to connect and sync their ledger content together. While still in the early stages, this marks a significant milestone for Ethereum 2.0, which has been under internal testing for several years.

The development team has employed cybersecurity firm Trail of Bits to perform a second security audit of their Prysm Ethereum 2.0 client for additional safety assurance. To improve transparency, the team has also published a list of objectives that still need to be reached before the mainnet launch. These include implementing eth2.0-apis and completing voluntary exits in Prysm.

This exciting news demonstrates Ethereum 2.0's continued progress towards its proposed goals, providing a decentralized platform for a host of global applications. More tests and network simulations will be performed in the coming months to ensure that the network remains stable and secure.