Disclaimer: This article aims to convey more market information and does not constitute any investment advice. The article only represents the author's viewpoint and does not represent the official stance of Mars Finance
Disclaimer: This article aims to convey more market information and does not constitute any investment advice. The article only represents the author's viewpoint and does not represent the official stance of Mars Finance.
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Source: PANews
Author: Allen
The "every move" of Ethereum, the leader of the public chain, has attracted the attention of the entire encryption circle, and upgrading Ethereum is naturally one of the most concerning topics for everyone. Ethereum plans to "merge" in the second quarter of 2022, that is, to realize the transformation from PoW (proof-of-work) to PoS (proof of equity). The transformation of the consensus mechanism has also become a hot topic in recent discussions.
After studying the Ethereum official website, PANews found that the Ethereum upgrade roadmap has been changed, and some related terminology has also been adjusted. Currently, many articles still cite old information, which will mislead users. This article will provide a detailed introduction to the technical solutions for Ethereum upgrade to solve the current difficulties, the significance of this merger and upgrade, and related content for future upgrades based on the latest roadmap.
Technical Proposal
Before understanding the specific content of Ethereum upgrade, let's briefly review why Ethereum needs to be upgraded. Ethereum's vision is to have better scalability and security while ensuring decentralization, in order to better serve existing and potential users while supporting sustainable development. However, currently Ethereum is facing many challenges such as network congestion, increasing threshold for operating nodes, and energy loss caused by PoW mechanism. Its series of upgrades are aimed at solving these problems. Since 2014, Ethereum upgrades have become a research and development hotspot.
Technical Proposal
- Using sharding chains to address scalability issues;
- Using beacon chains to randomly assign validators to ensure security;
- Using PoS mechanism to reduce node threshold and achieve decentralization;
Specifically, sharding chain will improve the scalability of Ethereum by reducing the workload of node validators and supporting Ethereum to create multiple blocks simultaneously. The beacon chain will randomly assign validators to different shard chains, with a low probability of wrongdoing, ensuring the security of the Ethereum network. The PoS mechanism can effectively reduce the threshold for running nodes, support more ordinary users to become node validators, and achieve maximum decentralization.
Latest roadmap
Technical ProposalLatest roadmap
Latest roadmap2020Layer2rollupsrollupsPoWPoS
In addition to the change of the roadmap, some terms have also been adjusted. The previous terms ETH1 (the existing proof-of-work chain) and ETH2 (the equity proof chain to which users and applications were originally planned to move) have been abandoned. Since the end of 2021, core developers have stopped using these terms and replaced them with new terms "executive layer" and "consensus layer" respectively. So after the merger, the existing Ethereum main network will be regarded as a shard chain "Shard0" with transaction execution and smart contract functions, which will not be abandoned, and applications and users will not migrate to the new proof of rights chain.
The Meaning of Merger
The merger and upgrade of PoW to PoS only involves changes in the consensus mechanism, and the scalability issue of the Ethereum network still needs to be solved by relying on Layer2 technology or sharding chain online. So, this merger and upgrade will not reduce the high gas fees of the Ethereum main network. This issue requires the combination of sharding chain and Layer2 technology to effectively solve, that is, the transaction process is executed on a cheap second layer protocol, and the final state (transaction database) is stored in the sharding chain.
PoWPoSTechnical ProposalPoS
1)Support for sharding chain launch. The security of the shard chain will affect the entire Ethereum network, so it can only be gradually launched after the security is effectively guaranteed. This merger and upgrade is also preparing for the final shard chain launch. The validators of the shard chain will be randomly assigned by the beacon chain, as they are random, making it difficult for validators on one shard chain to collude and commit evil. According to the Ethereum team, the probability of such evil is less than one in a trillion, ensuring the security of the shard chain.
The protection mechanism of sharded chain can only be achieved under PoS consensus, while PoW consensus cannot. Under the PoW consensus, as long as the mining machine has strong computing power, anyone can become a miner, so the agreement cannot control the miners. Without control, random allocation is impossible, and miners have autonomy and can collude to choose to commit evil against the same shard chain. The safety of the natural shard chain cannot be guaranteed. Under the PoS consensus, the prerequisite for becoming a verifier is to pledge 32 ETHs. Through this entry threshold, the agreement can control the verifier, which means "if you don't follow my arrangement, you will exit". Because the protocol has control over the validators, it can randomly assign validators to the sharding chain, ensuring security through randomness.
2)Lowering node threshold to achieve decentralization. Under the PoW mechanism, the threshold for becoming a verification node is high and requires professional mining machines and other hardware equipment. With the development of the Ethereum ecosystem and the updating and iteration of mining machines, it is more difficult for ordinary users to enter, such as the current situation of BTC miners. By adopting the PoS mechanism, Ethereum can effectively reduce the entry threshold for verification nodes, and any user can join the verification team by pledging 32 ETHs. The work of the verifier includes creating new blocks (i.e. miners) and verifying new blocks (i.e. not miners), which are randomly assigned by the beacon chain and do not require computational power, greatly reducing the requirements for hardware equipment and supporting more user participation. The more nodes participating in verification, the more decentralized and decentralized the Ethereum network becomes, making it more secure when facing attacks.
3)Supporting sustainable development. PoW requires the consumption of power resources, and currently the power supply itself is insufficient. For example, in recent years, China has been experiencing industrial power rationing. At present, power generation mainly relies on thermal power generation, which is not very environmentally friendly. Environmentally friendly hydroelectric power generation, solar power generation, wind power generation, etc. have not become the main force. In the context of global carbon reduction and environmental protection, choosing a PoS mechanism that does not consume any energy is more in line with the vision of sustainable development of the Ethereum network.
Future upgrade - sharding chain
Block sharding is the process of horizontally partitioning a database to distribute load. The Ethereum network is committed to alleviating network congestion and increasing transaction processing per second through sharding chain technology. Generally speaking, sharding is equivalent to breaking down a task into multiple tasks, and each small task can be performed simultaneously, which can effectively improve the speed of completing the task. In addition, if there are many members within the organization, and a task is split among multiple people, and some people are still idle, the organization can send other tasks to the remaining people to achieve synchronous multitasking. Therefore, sharding chain supports Ethereum to create multiple blocks at the same time. By disassembling tasks and synchronizing multiple tasks, sharding chain has become a crucial part of Ethereum expansion. By combining it with Rollups technology, the TPS of the Ethereum network can reach around 100000.
In addition to improving Ethereum TPS, sharded chains also contribute to its decentralization. The validators of the existing Ethereum main network need to store and run the entire network's data, and after sharding, the validators only need to manage the data on the sharding chain they are responsible for verifying. This not only accelerates verification speed, but also reduces the demand for hardware devices, allowing more users to become verification nodes. According to the official website, sharding will ultimately allow individuals to run Ethereum on laptops or phones.
There is currently no consensus in the community regarding the final version of shard chain in the future. One is that the sharding chain only serves as the data layer, providing additional data to the network, and does not have the function of processing transactions or smart contracts. Therefore, after the upgrade, only the existing Ethereum main network serves as the execution layer. Another approach is for partial sharding chains to become intelligent, allowing them to execute smart contracts and transactions like the current Ethereum main network, which is still under debate in the community. Of course, in the future, decisions related to sharding chains can be reconsidered as needed.
Summary
From the 2021 public chain war to the hot discussion of multi chain coexistence this year, as well as the prospects of Layer2 technology, the discussion of infrastructure public chain has always been a hot topic in the industry. Ethereum, as the most mature public chain in the encryption industry, has an indescribable position, and its ability to effectively upgrade will have a certain impact on the entire industry. How will new public chains that focus on high performance (such as Solana, Avalanche, etc.) respond to future Ethereum upgrades, and what will happen to the overall public chain landscape at that time? In the future, PANews will continue to pay attention to the upgrade of Ethereum. Welcome to download the app, and the author will continue to follow.
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