Danny Ryan, a core Ethereum developer, answered community questions on Reddit's r/ethfinance about Ethereum 2.0, tackling concerns about the long-awaited upgrade that's been in development since 2018.
Danny Ryan, a core Ethereum developer, answered community questions on Reddit's r/ethfinance about Ethereum 2.0, tackling concerns about the long-awaited upgrade that's been in development since 2018. The project originally targeted July for the launch but has since pushed back the date. The update, called Serenity, will shift Ethereum from Proof of Work mining to Proof of Stake validation, aiming to raise transaction throughput, enhance security, and accelerate the network.
Ryan explained the upgrade will unfold across multiple phases. He addressed concerns that the shift to Proof of Stake could cause problems, and he broke down what Ethereum developers expect from each stage. He also acknowledged the delay for phase 0, noting that testing a distributed system takes considerable time.
While developers have focused most of their effort on phase 0, Ryan said the team is making swift progress on phase 1 to launch it soon after. The first phase requires more powerful hardware than phase 0. A Raspberry Pi 4 might run phase 0, but phase 1 demands a stronger machine.
The 32 ETH requirement to run a validator node has sparked controversy among the community. Ryan said Ethereum developers are aware of the complaint and are open to revisiting the number after phase 0 goes live. The team had originally planned to let validators move ETH between nodes, but that feature didn't make the final design.
To prevent the network from concentrating around a few staking-as-service providers like the miner pool dominance Bitcoin faces, developers have built in "disincentives" that penalize centralization. Ryan said the team is committed to involving the Ethereum community to ensure the network runs on many different client implementations, and the system will punish attempts to centralize around specific clients or other points of failure.
When someone asked about running a DeFi-specific shard to speed up decentralized finance applications, Ryan said the developers haven't considered it and don't expect to add one soon.
The question of Ethereum 3.0 came up in the thread, with some suggesting the upgrade cycle might focus on quantum resistance. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin responded to that speculation: "At present, I favour the basic structure of Ethereum never again changing after (ETH 2.0) is out; only incremental tweaks."
