The founder of Ethereum published five articles on his blog, where he talked about plans to deploy Ethereum 2.0. Articles were published during the Devcon annual conference.
Earlier it was reported that the zero phase of Ethereum 2.0, which activates the transition to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), should start on January 3, 2020. In preparation for the historic update, Buterin informs users and application developers about what to expect from the network next year.
Five articles on Buterin’s blog on issues and long-standing unknowns about the Ethereum 2.0 network have become very popular in the cryptocurrency community. Here are the main conclusions from the comments of the founder of Ethereum.
1. Moving ETH between blockchains may be possible in the short term
Based on their existing Ethereum 2.0 design, it will probably be years before the old Ethereum blockchain on PoW is fully merged with the new PoS network. At this time, the transfer of ETH between the two blockchains will not be possible.
This is because the added complexity of creating a “two-way bridge,” according to Ethereum 2.0 developer Preston Van Loon, poses a security risk to both networks.
“We assume a scenario in which one blockchain was spoiled by another, and we would have to implement a hard fork to roll back the changes. Or an option with the appearance of a vulnerability when someone can release an unlimited amount of ETH, ”said Van Lun.
Enabling the function of transferring coins between networks requires a safe method for ensuring PoW network synchronization regarding the accuracy of applications in the PoS network.
“It is estimated that in the first few months of operation, the Ethereum 2.0 network will have a limited number of transaction validators and will potentially have lower security than the current Ethereum 1.0 chain,” said Ben Edgington, Consensys engineer. “This potentially provides an attack vector. If someone wants to get free money in the Ethereum 1.0 chain, they can try to attack the Ethereum 2.0 chain and then convince Ethereum 1.0 to accept these coins, ”Edgington said.
In a recent post
Buterin on the blog offers two possible ways to create a “bridge” between two blockchains. He acknowledges that “both of these proposals will require urgent remedial action on the side of Ethereum 1.0 if problems arise in Ethereum 2.0.”
To reduce such risks, Buterin proposes voting periods that allow “human intervention” to cancel the transfer of coins from the Ethereum 1.0 network. These proposals are still just a theory. Other Ethereum 2.0 developers, for example, Danny Ryan (Danny Ryan), introduced similar solutions to create a secure “bridge” between the two networks.
At the moment, the group has not added plans to create a “bridge” to the design of the roadmap for Ethereum 2.0.
2. The years will pass before the merger of Ethereum 1.0 and Ethereum 2.0
The Beacon chain is the heart of the new PoS network. This blockchain will act as a central command center to receive data on confirmed transactions from subordinate mini-blockchains (also called shards) in the Ethereum 2.0 network.
At the first stage, shards will be launched to communicate with the existing Beacon chain. In the second step, developers deployed runtimes for various types of decentralized applications (dapps) in each segment.
After that, the entire infrastructure of Ethereum 2.0 will be configured so that the existing Ethereum core network can be safely and reliably fully integrated with the new network. Edgington suggests that the transition to the second stage may take three to four years.
“Ethereum 1.0 and Ethereum 2.0 can work in parallel and continue to exist in this configuration for as long as we want … This is not critical.”
Asset security in the current Ethereum network is critical. Blockchain researcher Mihailo Bjelic says a complex system like Ethereum 2.0 should not replace an existing Ethereum network until developers can be sure of its reliability.
“Better to never run Ethereum 2.0 if it is unsafe,” he said. “A responsible decision, if you cannot ensure the security of the system, simply abandon it.”
In the second article, Buterin says that according to his idea, the transition, if and when it happens, will be smooth.
“If you are an application developer or user … the changes and problems you are experiencing will be very small. Existing applications will work without changes, ”Buterin writes.
3. Data requests in the Ethereum blockchain will rise in price
Dapp developers requesting and accessing data from the new Ethereum network will face increased transaction costs. But Buterin gives advice on limiting problems due to rising operating expenses.
“If you are a developer, you can eliminate most of the problems due to changes in the cost of gas, making sure that you do not write applications with high witness sizes, i.e. measure the total size of the storage slots + contracts + contract codes that are accessed in one transaction, and make sure that they are not too large, ”Buterin writes.
The increase in value is due to changes in the way Ethereum transactions are stored in the PoS network.
“Ethereum 2.0 does not record the current state … I can store information about the state in which I am interested locally, or there may be service providers such as Infura that specialize in this. The idea is that there will be a market in which people will store data on behalf of others, ”says Edgington.
4. Ethereum will lose the ability to execute transactions atomically
Perhaps this is the most important innovation for dapp developers: the next major iteration of the network will eliminate the ability of transactions in Ethereum to occur atomically.
Developers will no longer be able to perform transactions between different applications, so that in the event of a failure of one transaction, the entire series of transactions can be immediately restored. Today, this is only possible in Ethereum, because all dapps work in a single, shared network.
Ethereum 2.0 will break transaction loading into different shards. Theoretically, dapps creating new Ethereum transactions will also be split up and placed on different shard networks. This introduces a new dynamic for transactions in the Ethereum blockchain in such a way that the network of one shard cannot instantly recognize the complete state of another network.
“If I execute a transaction in Shard 1, and then want to complete a transaction in Shard 2, it will take a whole block before Shard 2 finds out what happened in Shard 1,” said Edgington.
According to Edgington, this brings a “level of complexity” to the programming of decentralized applications.
“Databases do this all the time. There are blocking mechanisms so that I can temporarily block the resources of interest to me and reveal them later, when I’m sure that everything happened, ”Edgington said.
Mihailo Bielic said that this “asynchronous communication” is an industry standard in computer systems and networks in general.
“Thus, it is easier to reason and assume any possible attack vectors or flaws in the code,” Bielic said. However, he noted that dapp developers will need time to adapt:
“Every time a new development paradigm appears, a learning curve arises, and developers don’t like it.”
Indeed, some in the Ethereum community are concerned about the negative impact this change will have on compatibility, or, as Buterin describes in his post, “the ability of different applications to easily communicate with each other.”
“The loss of atomicity will throw many developers back and make it harder to attract cryptocurrency traders,” wrote Loi Luu, CEO of the Kyber Network platform, in response to a message
on Buterin’s blog.
According to Dieter Shirley, chief technology officer at the Dapper Labs blockchain startup, it will be more difficult to manage large-scale decentralized applications that require several shards of bandwidth.
“Moving tokens between shards is not a problem … But if we talk about something like CryptoKitties, this is a much larger story,” he said. “Sharding does not make their work impossible, it just complicates it.”
5. The bandwidth of Ethereum 2.0 will be half that originally planned
Buterin’s fifth article on Ethereum 2.0 suggests a sharp reduction in the total number of shards at startup. Initially, the new network was supposed to have 1,024 shards, but Buterin recently offered only 64. According to him, the main advantage will be faster and easier communication between segments in Ethereum 2.0.
“This provides enough functionality to enable users to store coins in shards, use these coins to send transaction fees and move these coins between shards as easily as they move them within the same segment,” Buterin wrote.
According to Edgington, this would reduce the burden of inter-segment communication for application developers.
“In the previous Ethereum 2.0 design, if Shard 1 wanted to know the status of Shard 2, he had to wait for 64 slots, which is about six and a half minutes. According to the new design, the shards will be able to learn about each other’s state within the same slot, then in about six seconds, ”said Edgington.
According to Bjelic, this will also reduce the number of problems in the Ethereum 2.0 network as a whole.
“You take on such operational risk as launching 1024 shards that have not yet been tested in battle,” said Bielic. “Intuitively simpler with 64 segments, because it guarantees the transmission of fewer messages between shards on the network.”
But the total bandwidth of Ethereum 2.0 from the very beginning will be significantly reduced.
“We focus on about half the transaction throughput compared to the previous design,” said Edgington.
Ethereum 2.0 development continues
Ethereum 2.0 is still under development, and, as noted by other developers, the word Vitalik Buterin is not the law.
“If Vitalik publishes something, it will not necessarily be implemented. He does this to stimulate community discussion, ”said Zak Cole, founder and CEO of Blockchain Whiteblock startup. “It helps to inform everyone and understand what exactly is happening.”
Cole has reservations about the proposals recently put forward by Buterin, including the idea of creating an intermediate “bilateral bridge” between the two blockchains.
“It seems pretty risky to me,” Cole said. “This will require additional changes to the ETH 1.0 chain. … I don’t think we should contact the ETH 1.0 chain. ”
Disagreements between researchers and constant changes in direction do not excite Bielik. The usual state of any complex software is eternal evolution.
“There is no final software version. Changes are always made, ”he said.
However, Cole said that it’s important to have a general idea of “what the future will look like.”
“You will not start building a skyscraper without a project. You will not start building the first floor until you are sure what the last floor will look like, ”he said.
Wang Lun concluded that the successful development of the blockchain requires good communication between researchers and application developers.
“Uncertainty breeds fear,” he said. “Vitalik brought out from Devcon that we need to start discussing these ideas more often and more consistently.”
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