Vitalik Buterin talks about what to expect from the Etherium blockchain in the future
According to the creator of Etherium, Vitalik Buterin, the time has come for the project to reach a turning point, as Eth will soon go through a series of rapid changes that will determine the long-term future of this ecosystem. To recap, just recently the date of the so-called merger became known, i.e. the merger of the two working Eth chains and the final transition of the altcoin to the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. It was this period that Buterin also commented on.
It should be noted that the nearest important event for Etherium is the already mentioned merger, i.e. merging the current PoW chain, which works thanks to the cryptocurrency’s miners, and the Beacon Chain network with validators. The developers have scheduled this update for September 19 or the next week from that date.
Plans by the developers of Etherium to update the network
That said, the dates may end up being shifted. The update will go through in time if there are no problems during the merger testing phase of the latest test network called Goerli.
What will happen with Etherium?
At the moment, the top priority for the Etherium team is to create an easy-to-use, lightweight client for the consensus and execution layers, as well as tier 2 solutions.
As a reminder, second-tier solutions are separate networks based on the underlying blockchain. They reduce the computational load on the main network and record the final results of multiple transactions on it. This allows more transactions at a lower cost.
Then, support for individual validators, i.e. those who want to validate transactions on the network with minimal investment, needs to be improved when Etherium moves to Proof-of-Stake. Finally, Buterin considers the ability to run a network node based on hardware with relatively low performance to be crucial.
Vitalik Buterin at the recent EthCC conference
As for long-term plans, Buterin plans to improve Etherium with better cryptographic technologies. In this way, the altcoin should in the long run become resistant even to potential attacks on the network by a quantum computer. Here is his rejoinder, in which the developer voices his plans.
We also need to remain open to new plans. We don’t know exactly what challenges we will face in 2032.
Here is a video of Vitalik Buterin speaking at the EthCC event in Paris. Note that to get the audience’s attention at the beginning of the speech, Vitalik jokingly began to voice the private key to his address.
We recommend to listen if you want to know more about further vector of Etherium development and understand English by ear. Buterin's speeches are always useful.
According to Cointelegraph’s sources, Vitalik also shared a skepticism about some innovations. These include the support of many complex virtual machines, as well as too much “closeness” and complexity of projects in general, which could make them incomprehensible to untrained professionals.
As for the merger itself, so far the project team is on track: the test phase of the migration to the core network is about 90 per cent complete, according to Buterin. The only thing left to do is the final tests on a test network called Goerli, which should take place “very soon”.
Goerli is an Ethereum test network that serves as a testing ground for innovations before they are finally rolled out to the main network. As it became known last week, the tentative date for the merger in this testnet was August 11, 2022.
Validators will be able to start withdrawing their ETH from the deposit contract immediately after the merger, Buterin said.
After the merger, you will be able to create a client that won’t even know that any switch to Proof-of-Stake has taken place.
Note that the official Efirium website indicates that withdrawals will be possible after the Shanghai update. The merger, on the other hand, will not allow for the withdrawal of zapped crypto immediately. Apparently, it will take some time to do so.
In other words, the developers are trying to make the “new Etherium” as easy to use as possible, even for those new to the crypto industry. Eventually, when all the developers’ plans come to fruition, Etherium “will be able to process 100,000 transactions per second”, Vitalik noted. By comparison, altcoin’s throughput now remains at 15-17 transfers per second.
Comparison of Etherium’s throughput with other popular crypto market projects
Amid the positive news of the merger, the price of Etherium has risen significantly in the past few days. Today, ETH is valued at $1,635. Over the past week, the cryptocurrency's value has increased by 37 percent.
Hourly chart of the Etherium exchange rate
We believe that the coming months will be really important for the development of Etherium, because the developers have been planning to move the network to Proof-of-Stake since the early days of this blockchain. Now it's essentially up to their efforts, which could result in no bugs in the last stage of merger testing.
What do you think about this? Share your opinion in our Millionaire Crypto Chat. We’ll discuss other important developments for the industry there as well.
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