Ethereum 2.0 refers to a set of upgrades over the course of six years. These activities focus on solving scalability issues, gas fees when you buy Ethereum online, and heavy blockchain congestions.
At its core, Ethereum 2.0 introduces two major concepts:
- Sharding – Splitting the entire network into 18 shards, smaller, more manageable pieces operating at the same time.
- Staking – Moving from the Proof-of-Work consensus to Proof-of-Stake to transform transaction validation.
Let’s now look at Ethereum’s timeline of current and future developments.
The Three Phases of Ethereum 2.0
The launch of Ethereum 2.0 was divided into three phases, which developers colloquially refer to as:
- Phase 0 – Heart
- Phase 1 – Limbs
- Phase 2 – Brain
The co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, noted that “If you are doing a complex thing that you think will take a while, it’s very likely to take a lot more time.” We’ll try to explain these complex changes in simple terms.
Phase 0. Beacon Chain
Took place on December 1, 2020.
When Phase 0 was first launched, it was already known that the effect wouldn’t be felt for years. Until other phases are finally integrated into a functioning whole, Beacon Chain is just the first stepping stone.
This was the coordinating mechanism for the forthcoming PoS blockchain, which introduced two important technological implementations:
- The PoS consensus – Miners are replaced with validators.
- Validator nodes – A three-year commitment to staking 32 ETH and authoring new blocks.
Oregonstate News Blog 