Beginning of Ethereum (ETH)
Since Ethereum was born in 2015, it has gone through a lot, for example, during 2017 it was called the “golden era of ICOs.” But it is also the starting point for the development of many DApps that we see today. Back in the mid-2020s, when more investors started talking about “DeFi”, Ethereum regained its role as the “King of Smart Contract” when new people entered the market. crypto And when it comes to depositing money with DeFi, Ethereum will be the first Blockchain that everyone talks about.
As well as the arrival of NFT and GameFi in mid-2021, the use of the Ethereum network increased, until the “Opensea” NFT trading platform became DApps from the Ethereum side with protocol peaks. Second highest revenue And the hit game Axie Infinity, which launched on Ethereum, has topped Protocol Revenue of all time since Ethereum’s launch.
This trend has brought more and more users to Ethereum. Which in the end is like a double edged sword. Because the Ethereum network itself can only handle 15 transactions per second, and the DeFi Summer of 2021 will make the Ethereum network extremely congested. Transaction fees are expensive, delayed, and fail often.
Ethereum’s Problem with Blockchain Trilemma Limitations
The only thing that will allow Ethereum to become the Blockchain for Everyone is inevitably adding transaction support. (Scalability) to make the network work faster, according to the rules of the Blockchain Trilemma, which states that only two of the three properties a Blockchain can have are security (Security), support for more transactions. (Scalability) and decentralization. (Decentralized) Ethereum seems to lack one feature: “Scalability”
This issue had always been on the mind of Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, until in 2017, or just two years after he launched Ethereum, he announced: “He will replace Ethereum with a Proof of Stake consensus mechanism instead of the current Proof of Work.” The idea of converting Ethereum to Ethereum 2.0 was initiated in 2017.
Ethereum 2.0 is born
Ethereum 2.0 is transforming the original Proof of Work consensus mechanism into Proof of Stake to help the network save even more energy. More secure It is more decentralized. “The Merge” is the final step in the upgrade to Ethereum 2.0, bringing together the Ethereum Mainnet we currently use, which is Proof of Work. The Beacon Chain is an ETH staking network that uses the Proof of Stake system to transform Ethereum’s overall system from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake. Many people watch Because it will significantly transform Ethereum.
The Merge Big Changes after being postponed countless times
By reaching the stage of The Merge, it has to go through several upgrades. It was between these upgrades that caused The Merge to be postponed indefinitely since 2017. The Merge was originally scheduled to be completed in January 2020, has been postponed several times. The first postponement occurred in 2017 during the Metropolis upgrade consisting of the Byzantium Hard Fork (a fork that reduced the Mining Reward from 5 ETH to 3 ETH), when the development team encountered a problem with the Parity Node software upgrade. This made Vitalik decide to postpone this Hard Fork.
Additionally, the delay in the Constantinopole upgrade (a fork that converts Ethereum into a POS-POW hybrid) as the next step in the Metropolis upgrade has been postponed due to code vulnerabilities detected during Audit done by the company ChainSecurity The original plan that the Metropolis upgrade was planned to be completed in mid-2018 had to be postponed to February 2019.
Subsequent deferrals occurred during the Istanbul Hard Fork upgrade, which is a phase where six Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) are upgraded together, for example Optimizing Transaction Fees, Changing Operation Code to support Scaling Solution. SNARKS and STARKS etc. This Istanbul Hard Fork has been postponed twice. Originally scheduled to be completed in September 2019, it was finally postponed and completed in December 2019. The reason for the delay was that the core developer team submitted more than 30 EIPs to the team for consideration. After that, only 6 EIPs were eliminated and the team needed more time to test these EIPs.
The next postponed upgrade is the Staking Deposit Contract Deploy, one of the key steps in building a Deposit Contract to support Proof of Stake. This phase has been postponed from the original October schedule. 2020 to November 2020, the postponement was due to a delay from the Crypto Library Audit (BLST) managed by NCC Group.
The team later postponed the Berlin hard fork upgrade. and defense against attacks Denial-of-service (DDOS), etc. The Berlin Hard Fork was originally scheduled to be completed in June-July 2020, but was postponed to April 2021 due to concerns about centralization in the client. Geth ent, where most Ethereum nodes are active.
Until 2022, originally scheduled for The Merge to be completed in December 2021, it was postponed to May-June 2022 because the client wasn’t ready for a merge, but was postponed further. The time is August 2022 due to Bugs encountered on Goerli’s Shadow Forks.
Prior to the integration (The Merge) on the main Ethereum network, the developer team had already tested two of The Merge steps in the Testnet system this year, Ropsten Testnet Day. on June 9 and Sepolia Testnet on July 7. And for now, just the Goerli Testnet merge test, the last testnet test expected to take place by August 10, before the Merge phase of the Ethereum Mainnet and Beacon Chain actually takes place.
The wait is over, ETH 2.0 is coming! This September 2022
Recently, on July 19, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin updated his long-term plans for a major upgrade of Ethereum called “The Merge” at the 5th EthCC Conference. The Merge upgrade is 90% complete and the network will be transformed into Ethereum 2.0 on September 19, so stay tuned to see if this will be postponed.
After The Merge is finished This will make the Ethereum network more energy efficient. And the production rate of Ether has dropped from 15,000 ETH per day to only 1,200 ETH per day (lower supply, more affects the price in the long run). And those who stake in Ethereum 2.0 will receive more staking yields. At present (the staking yield in the Beacon Chain is around 4%), but upgrading The Merge doesn’t mean the network can handle more transactions than before. But what will make the network more supportive of transactions? It is an upgrade in The Surge stage, which is a step that will add sharding capability to Ethereum so that the network can handle more transactions. It will begin in 2023.
Article written by Meow Kuljira Ittiamornkul – Researcher at Cryptomind Advisory and Mr. Audi Siwakorn Samutthong – Analyst at Cryptomind Advisory
Compiled by Bitcoin Addic Thailand Team
Source: coindesk coindesk(2) Ethereum consensys crypto news bitcoinaddict