The Ethereum 2.0 update, which has been in development for years, began this Tuesday, December 1, with the generation of the Beacon Chain Genesis block, another step towards the transition of the Ethereum network to the Proof of Stake protocol.
As its developers had planned, the Genesis block of the first phase of Ethereum 2.0, Phase 0 or Beacon Chain, was mined on December 1st at 12:00 pm UTC, kicking off the most anticipated update in the crypto community. This is Ethereum's first step towards the transition that will take the protocol network Proof of Work to the protocol Proof of Stake, eliminating the need for miners on the network, and significantly improving its scalability.
Although the road still has to be traveled Ethereum The time to complete this transition is quite long, the developers and the crypto community have high expectations. To start the Beacon Chain, a minimum of 16.384 deposits with 524.288 ETH would be required, but the reality is that the ETH deposited in the network far exceeded this threshold. As of the date of this publication, there are 903.905 ETH deposited on the Beacon Chain and rising, showing the confidence surrounding this upgrade.
Ethereum is second cryptocurrency largest by market capitalization, surpassed only by Bitcoin (BTC), and it is also the network blockchain most important for the development of smart contracts or smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps), as well as for the development of decentralized finance protocols or DeFi.
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A good start for ETH 2.0
The start of the genesis block began at the time planned by the developers without any setbacks, so far, and almost instantly reached the required stake rate. However, there was a rather curious fact at the time of its creation.
Similar to Bitcoin, in the genesis block of Ethereum 2.0 you can read a message, although it is nothing like the headline in The Times that immortalized Satoshi Nakamoto in the Bitcoin genesis block. In Ethereum 2.0 you can read «Mr F was here", meaning "Mr. F was here." Vitalik ButerinEthereum co-founder Buterin was quick to comment on this on his Twitter account. In this regard, Buterin posted a rather ironic tweet, noting that “normal people” would place a profound and representative message about humanity’s achievements or about this important innovation in the first block of the chain, while the Ethereum community only wrote “Mr F was here«.
In response to Buterin, several users commented that this is “true decentralization,” pointing out that a regular user was able to leave a personal mark within this block, rather than an important person leaving a planned message or speech.
Beacon Chain, the first phase of a transformation
Ethereum 2.0 is divided into 3 phases: Phase 0, the proof-of-stake network or Beacon Chain; Phase 1, for the shard data chains; and Phase 2, for the application and execution environments for the final implementation of the network.
Phase 0, or Beacon Chain, which is currently underway, is intended to begin Ethereum's transition path, changing its consensus mechanism from miners and proof of work to validators and proof of stake. In this phase, to be a validator of the network, users must deposit a total of 32 ETH and remain active to avoid penalties. Likewise, this deposit will remain locked within the ETH 2.0 smart contract for at least 1 year, or until Ethereum merges with Ethereum 2.0, integrating the Beacon Chain and sharding chains. The development team foresees the next phase for the end of next year or early 2022.
Ethereum 2.0 is the upgrade that will optimize the network in terms of scalability and security, as well as being more energy efficient by eliminating mining equipment. Before starting this transition, the developers implemented several test networks to detect errors and ensure the optimal functioning of the network.
More confidence in investors and network users
In the Beacon Chain there are a total of 21.235 validators At the time of this note, and the network in general has more than 11.300 nodes connected by December 1, a number that exceeded the total number of nodes connected to the Bitcoin network by this same date. According to the data provider Bitnodes, the Bitcoin network has 11.050 nodes connected for this December 1st; this drop in the number of connected Bitcoin nodes may be due to the new restrictionsnes imposed in China, where the state banned power plants in Yunnan province from providing electricity to cryptocurrency mining farms.
For its part, the increase in the number of nodes on Ethereum began on November 16, prior to the start of ETH 2.0, as shown by data from ethernodes.
Although the transition to the Proof of Stake protocol will lead the network to not need the mining work that is currently required, the Ethereum blockchain, with the proof of work model, and the Ethereum 2.0 blockchain, with the proof of stake model, will coexist in parallel for at least 2 years.
At the time of this writing, the price of ETH on the markets is $599 USD, with a correction of around 8%, after starting the day with a value of more than $630 USD.
Continue reading: Ethereum 2.0 is coming soon, 100% of deposits are ready
