How does Ethereum 2.0 achieve "swipe-level" speed?

Text: JX kin

Source: Hive Finance

There is no Ethereum that can be halved in 2020, and there are many stories to tell.

On January 13, Weiss Crypto Ratings, a cryptocurrency rating agency, said on Twitter that Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, stated that the confirmation time for version 2.0 transactions would be shortened to 3 to 6 seconds.

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Two days ago, the Ethereum community released a version of the 2.0 Phase 0 code specification. Some new ideas have begun to be implemented, but the specific launch time of the new version has not been finalized. "Not the first quarter is the second quarter. Specific time. "Vitalik Buterin responded in the Chinese community.

Ethereum, which has evolved to 2.0, will be a new network system. Under the existing foundation, the consensus protocol Casper and fragmentation technology are expected to land. The complexity of the technology also means that the development difficulty is increasing.

Whether the new Ethereum can land is related to whether the public chain can get out of the "impossible triangle" dilemma, and then affect whether commercial applications can be deployed on it.

 

"Stage 0" code specification released

On January 13th, Weiss Crypto Ratings, a cryptocurrency rating agency, tweeted a message about Ethereum 2.0. "God V revealed that when Ethereum 2.0 is fully implemented, the time required to confirm the transaction will be from Minutes are reduced to 3 to 6 seconds-roughly equivalent to the time required to swipe a card. "

Two days ago, the Ethereum Github code base showed that the community has released the Phase 0 (Phase 0) code specification of version 2.0 with a version number of v0.10.0. The important information is that the "new BLS standard" will be integrated into Ethereum In the 2.0 specification. Ethhub founder EricConner also said that this version of the code specification is about to be audited and it is the basis for future multi-client testnets.

BLS is a signature algorithm proposed by Dan Boneh, Ben Lynn, and HovavShacham of Stanford University. This signature algorithm can realize the aggregation of multiple signatures into one signature, and the aggregation of multiple keys into one key. When multiple verifiers are required to sign the block, the BLS aggregation algorithm is used to ensure system security and save storage space. The BLS signature algorithm is also the basis for Ethereum moving from a PoW (Proof of Computing Power) mechanism to a PoS (Proof of Stake) mechanism.

Not long ago, some users in the Ethereum Chinese community asked about the launch time of version 2.0. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin replied, "It will be either the first or the second quarter." Start.

BTC, BCH, Dash and other eight major currencies will enter the development cycle of halving production in 2020. For Ethereum, which is not halved, the new year is equally important. Whether version 2.0 can be successfully launched is not only about the breakthrough progress of the king of the public chain, but also to verify whether the public chain can be energy-efficient and safe. Achieve high performance.

The "impossible triangle of the public chain" problem is also one of the exploration directions of Ethereum 2.0, especially to solve the problem of network congestion, because this is directly related to the landing of some high-frequency trading applications on Ethereum.

BTC.com shows that the current Ethereum network block generation time under the POW consensus is about 13 seconds, and the transaction volume per second is 6 transactions. In reality, the maximum transaction transaction volume per second is about 20 transactions.

Ethereum 2.0 goals

According to community planning, Ethereum 2.0 is not an upgrade and patch on the current 1.0 version, but a new network system under a comprehensive revision and redesign, which will bring sharding technology implementation, proof of stake, new virtual machine (eWASM), etc. Variety.

"Modify consensus + fragmentation technology" speed up

Currently, there are nine independent development teams working together in version 2.0. In terms of solving performance problems, Ethereum 2.0 points technical solutions to the modification of consensus protocols and the implementation of fragmentation technology.

Like current Bitcoin, Ethereum uses the PoW consensus mechanism. New Ethereum will move from PoW consensus mechanism to PoS consensus protocol.

Compared to PoW's mechanism for determining the verification power of nodes, the advantage of PoS is that there are restrictions on the nodes participating in verification, and the confirmation speed will increase.

The sharding technology is to divide a large chain (database) into smaller "small blocks" that can be confirmed faster. Each shard can be self-managed and has its own transaction history record area. The shard data is finally summarized. To the main chain, so that the entire system is more scalable, thereby improving network efficiency.

For example, a DApp can have a complete shard, and all verifications related to it are only on that shard. Nodes on the chip can confirm the transaction completion without verifying the data of other shards.

Under the PoW consensus mechanism, Ethereum has only one longest chain as the main chain. The Ethereum 2.0 network has a beacon chain and 1024 fragment chains. These different fragment chains can communicate with each other. As a core chain, the beacon chain co-ordinates the fragmentation chain to achieve capacity expansion.

After Ethereum 2.0 is launched, the current version of ETH reward assets and on-chain data will be migrated. Data migration can be achieved through two-way bridging and one-way bridging. In this regard, the current proposal of the community is that in phase 2, the state of the Eth1.0 chain is transferred to the on-chain shards of Eth 2.0 to ensure that all information of the Eth 1.0 chain is available on the Eth 2.0 chain.

Advantages and disadvantages of unidirectional and bidirectional bridging

After completing the 2.0 upgrade, ETH digital assets will be converted to BETH, which means that ETH on the original chain will not be available in the new network. The holder of ETH can only exchange 1: 1 for BETH, and the original ETH assets will be destroyed. This exchange method will be completed by the smart contract on version 1.0, and will be monitored by the 2.0 beacon chain.

According to the existing rules, after Ethereum realizes the PoS consensus, staking (pledge) will become one of the important functions. Users can pledge 32 BETH to become validators of the ETH2.0 beacon chain, participate in maintaining the network, and obtain BETH. Reward.

Known as the "V god" Vitalik Buterin has repeatedly stated in public that after Ethereum 2.0 is fully implemented, its TPS will be thousands of times now. If there is no delay in the launch time of version 2.0, the flag set by V God can be seen in the first half of this year.

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