Ethereum (ETH) has officially launched its first pre-release of phase zero in v0.1, in its ever-evolving transition to Ethereum 2.0 (also known as Serenity).
According to a new post published on Ethereum’s GitHub:
“Phase 0 in v0.1 is relatively feature complete and approaching stable.”
What Is Ethereum 2.0 Serenity?
Ethereum 2.0 – Serenity – is set to be Ethereum’s final system upgrade that makes it better and faster. The entire upgrade is very complex, and is currently being carried out in phases over a number of years. The final completion date is set for around 2021.
The Serenity upgrade is broken down into 4 phases, each of which is further divided into sub-phases. The first phase, Frontier, was Ethereum’s initial build at launch. The second phase, Homestead, took us into 2018.
The third phase, which is the phase we are currently in, is called Metropolis. Metropolis consists of 2 hard forks, Byzantium and Constantinople, the latter of which has been delayed until late February due to vulnerabilities in its code. So although we are still in the Metropolis stage, we have begun the initial stages of the 4th phase, Serenity.
Serenity (Ethereum 2.0) is the most important and feature-rich stage of Ethereum’s development that tackles a variety of issues from scalability, economic finality, and security.
The potential updates this phase includes are proof-of-stake (PoW) solutions, such as Beacon Chain and Casper FFG, as well as scaling solutions, including sharding, eWASM, Plasma, Raiden, and more.
While all of these updates and solutions are important, one of the most talked-about and significant upgrades this phase entails is the entire Ethereum network transition from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus algorithm.
And the most recent pre-release of phase zero in v0.1 is said by Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, to be feature-complete for Casper, which is a PoS-PoW hybrid consensus model:
See docs. *baaasically* feature complete for Casper.
— Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) January 31, 2019
Gorli Testnet Platform Is Live
In addition to Ethereum 2.0’s first pre-release, a new testnet platform called Gorli is now live and serves to provide a trial for the sharding solution, dubbed Prysm for Serenity. The testnet will allow developers to test smart contracts and perform upgrades on a simulated version of the main network.
As well, Gorli will play a significant role in syncing Ethereum clients together, including Geth, Pantheon, Parity, EthereumJS, and Nethermind.
All in all, despite the Constantinople hard fork being delayed, other aspects of Ethereum 2.0 continue to be developed and deployed. While all of these network improvements take time, Ethereum is slowly but surely working its way toward sustainable scalability.
Do you think Ethereum 2.0 will meet its deadline of 2021? Will this final upgrade ensure Ethereum’s position as the #1 smart contract and dapp development platform? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.
