Thread by @PastryEth

There’s been a lot of talk about #EIP1559 recently..

However, not many seem to know that this is just 1 small step forward in #Ethereum’s roadmap toward “Serenity”, or “ETH 2.0”, & there are in fact many more substantial upgrades to come..

Let’s dive in..🧁

In order to understand these upgrades, we first need to understand $ETH 2.0

$ETH 2.0 refers to an infrastructure upgrade of #Eth with the aim of creating a more secure, user-friendly, & scalable blockchain that can accommodate the growth required to become a global supercomputer

Beacon Chain

The beacon chain is an upgraded version of $ETH that will eventually replace the legacy $ETH blockchain currently in use.

Its purpose is to introduce a new consensus model known as PoS & coordinate an expanded network of shards & stakers.

In $ETH 2.0, validator nodes will take over the role miners previously occupied of processing tx’s & creating new blocks.

In order to do so, the beacon chain was deployed requiring a minimum of 16,384 active validators who will eventually replace miners in securing the network

The Beacon chain is already live today with over 200,000 active validators & 6.6m staked $ETH

beaconscan.com

The Merge

When ready, the $ETH mainnet will “merge” with the beacon chain, becoming its own shard which uses PoS instead of PoW.

To fully realize this transition, mainnet will bring the ability to run smart contracts on PoS as well as the entire history & current state of $ETH

This will mark the end of PoW on $ETH & the start of a more sustainable, eco-friendly #Ethereum

In PoW, miners invest their resources, mainly electricity, to validate tx’s & secure the network.

PoS addresses the environmental concerns in POW by getting rid of miners entirely

In POS, users who want to secure the network stake their $ETH & become validators.

Each validator is incentivized to validate tx’s & act honestly in order to receive rewards in the form of tx fees

If a validator acts dishonestly, a portion of their staked $ETH is “slashed”

Ethereum’s transition to PoS is intended to offer many benefits: more security, more democratic governance, and significantly more efficient usage of resources.

Additionally, this will result in increased throughput, shorter transaction times, & lower transaction fees

Sharding

A term popular among computer science, sharding refers to splitting up a database into multiple instances.

In #Ethereum 2.0, the $ETH blockchain will be split up into 64 separate shards, allowing for greater data capacity, faster network speeds, & more scalability.

In its current model, #Ethereum is made up of a global network of nodes, each of which store the entire history of the chain.

As you can imagine, this is a lot of data. An $ETH node takes up at least 5 terabytes of space, which is about 10x what the average computer can hold

With sharding, however, validators only need to store/run data for the shard they're validating, not the entire network.

Sharding could potentially allow for thousands of tx’s/second & will significantly reduce hardware requirements to run a node.

ZK-Rollups

Although not explicitly stated in the ETH 2.0 roadmap, ZK-Rollups will play an important role in achieving scalability for #Ethereum.

Essentially, ZK-Rollups are solutions that perform tx execution outside the main $ETH chain.

ZK-Rollups bundle or “roll up” hundreds of transfers off chain (Layer 2) and generate a cryptographic proof, known as a SNARK.

This validity proof is then posted on Layer 1.

Since ZK-Rollups maintain the state of all transfers on Layer 2, ZK-Rollups only require the validity proof to be posted on chain, rather than the entire set of data for the transactions.

This will significantly reduce computing & storage resources needed for validating blocks.

Ewasm

Ewasm will replace the EVM as the state execution engine of the $ETH network and is expected to be one of the final aspects of Eth 2.0 to be integrated.

In order to understand why the EVM needs to be replaced, we must first look at what it’s role is.

The EVM is responsible for facilitating most tx’s & operations on the $ETH network, including execution of smart contracts

Because the EVM is in charge of so many functions, the speed with which it is able to handle operations & tx’s affects the performance of the entire network

From its inception, the EVM was designed to emphasize correctness rather than efficiency

EWASM, however, focuses on fast loading times & efficiency

While the EVM was optimized for theoretical use, Ewasm is developed for the real world, to translate coding logic at a fast pace

The implementation of Ewasm in place of the EVM will make a huge difference in how many tx’s can be processed

Additionally, it supports a variety of different programming languages, not just solidity

Thus, Ewasm is seen as a critical step toward achieving scalability for $ETH

It is no doubt that #Ethereum is revolutionary technology.

The brightest minds around the world are collaborating 24/7 to build out the future of $ETH

With PoS, Sharding, ZK-Rollups, & many other solutions not mentioned, $ETH is set to scale on levels never seen before.