Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency in the world, rivaling Bitcoin.
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ethereumIt is the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Since its creation almost ten years ago, Ethereum has been mined through the so-called proof-of-work model. It involves complex mathematical equations that a huge number of machines are vying to solve. and that Requires a lot of energy. Bitcoin Mining involves a similar process.
Ethereum is working on moving to a new model for securing the network called Proof of Stake. Rather than relying on energy-intensive mining, the new method requires users to leverage their existing Ether caches as a vehicle for transaction validation and token creation. It is expected to consume much less power and translate into faster transactions.
Ethereum Foundation researcher Ansgar Dietrichs said: said in a tweet When it comes to dry runs like this, the most important measure of success is time to final decision. He called it “another successful test.”
the timing of The upgrade will be discussed at the Ethereum Core Developers’ Meeting on Thursday.Previous guidance was that the integration was It should go into effect in mid-September. The final test took place on Wednesday around 9:45pm.
the price of etherthe native token of the Ethereum blockchain, but is still down by about half this year.
Ethereum migration has been repeatedly postponed over the past few years due to major implementation flaws. The developer says it will be up and running in about a month, given the successful Wednesday dry run.
this is what happened
One of Ethereum’s test networks or testnets called Goerli (named after a train station in Berlin) simulated the same process that the main network or mainnet would perform in September.
Testnets allow developers to try new things and make necessary adjustments before updates are rolled out across the main blockchain. Wednesday night’s exercise also proved that the proof-of-stake validation process significantly reduces the energy required to validate a transaction block, and that the merger process works.
“Goerli has the bottom-up testnet badge.” Josef Je, developer working with the Ethereum Foundation and now running a permissionless peer-to-peer lending platform called PWN, said: Je added that it is also the most used testnet at this point.
Je said that Goerli’s Proof of Stake will be almost identical to how it works on mainnet.
of According to the Ethereum Foundation blog Goerli says it is “closest to mainnet and useful for testing smart contract interactions.”
finding bugs
Ethereum’s protocol developer coordinator Tim Beiko told CNBC it’s usually “within minutes” if the test was successful. Pay attention to many configuration issues that may arise later so that you can fix them quickly.
“We want the network to be complete and have a high participation rate among validators. .
The easiest metric to track is participation rate. This means how many validators are performing their duties online, he said. If the numbers go down, the developer needs to find out why.
Another important issue relates to transactions. Ethereum processes transactions in groups called blocks. Veiko said whether a block has real transactions and is not empty would be one of the clear indicators that the test went well.
The last major check is whether the network is finalizing. That means more than two-thirds of his validators are online and agree on the same view of chain history. Beiko says it takes him 15 minutes under normal network conditions.
“If those three items look good, we have a long list of secondary items to check, but at that point we are doing well,” says Beiko.
“more accessible”
Since December 2020, the Ethereum community has been testing proof of stake workflows on chains called beacons that run parallel to existing proof of work chains. Beacon solved some important problems.
Veiko said the initial proposal required validators to hold 1,500 ether to use the system, which is currently worth about $2.7 million. The new Proof of Stake proposal lowers the bar, requiring only 32 Ether, or about $57,600, for interested users.
“It’s still not a trivial amount of money, but it’s a much more accessible system,” said Beiko.
Leading up to Wednesday’s test, there were other important developments. In June, Ethereum’s longest-running testnet, known as Ropsten, successfully integrated its Proof of Work execution layer with its Proof of Stake beacon chain. This is the first major dry run for the process mainnet will be doing next month and everything should go according to plan.
Beiko said that testing the merge allows developers to ensure that the software running the Ethereum protocol is stable and that “everything built on the network is ready for migration.” said.
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