You're reading from Mastering Blockchain.. - Third Edition

Product typeBook

Published inAug 2020

Reading LevelBeginner

PublisherPackt

ISBN-139781839213199

Edition3rd Edition

Languages

Solidity

Tools

Blockchain

Concepts

Cryptocurrency

Author (1)

Imran Bashir

Serenity

Ethereum 1.0 is the current version of Ethereum, with Berlin being the latest release, or update. The public Ethereum mainnet available today runs the Ethereum 1.0 protocol. Serenity is the name given to Ethereum version 2.0. The vision behind Ethereum 2.0 is to ultimately transition into a more scalable, performant, and secure version of Ethereum that will serve as the World Computer, which is Ethereum's original vision. The concept of a world computer was introduced with Ethereum 1.0, in which a global, decentralized network of interconnected nodes runs peer-to-peer contracts without the limitation of shutting down, or being censored or hacked. This vision started with Ethereum 1.0 and gained a lot of traction; however, challenges such as scalability, privacy, and performance somewhat hindered mass adoption. Ethereum 2.0 is expected to address these issues in pursuit of becoming a world computer.

In Chapter 11, Ethereum 101, we saw that Ethereum is being released...

Ethereum 2.0—an overview

Based on the problem presented by Vitalik Buterin, an Ethereum co-founder, in 2015, it is understood that only two of the three main core properties of a blockchain can be utilized at a time. These three core properties are the following:

Decentralization
Scalability
Security (or consistency)

This is known as the Scalability Trilemma and is seen as a fundamental problem that needs to be addressed before global adoption of the Ethereum blockchain.

This concept is visualized in the following diagram:

Figure 16.1: Blockchain trilemma

Intensive research is underway with Phase 0 already near release. The aim is to address this trilemma and find the right balance between all three properties, instead of compromising and only choosing two of the three.

With the release of Proof of Stake (PoS), Sharding, and ewasm, a balanced combination of all these three properties, that is, decentralization, scalability...

Development phases

The four phases in the development of Ethereum 2.0 are focused on various features of the blockchain.

The main work included in Phase 0 is around the management of validators and the staking mechanism. In addition, this phase also includes block proposer selection, consensus mechanism rules, and a reward/penalty mechanism.

Phase 1 includes the development of shard chains and blocks along with the cross-linking (anchoring) of shard blocks to the beacon chain (the core system chain).

Phase 1.5 also known as "the merge" is where ethereum mainnet will transit into Ethereum 2 most likely by becoming a shard chain of Ethereum 2.0.

The next stage, Phase 2, is focused on execution environment upgrades, and includes a VM upgrade to ewasm along with cross-shard communication and access to execution environments. Moreover, Phase 2 introduces the ability to run and interact with smart contracts. Currently, the specification is not final and might...

Architecture

The following diagram shows the high-level architecture of Ethereum 2.0 clients and how they work together with the beacon chain. After completing the Running Ethereum 2.0 clients exercise in the book's online content repository, we'll be able to see the architecture shown in the following diagram in reality:

Figure 16.3: Ethereum 2.0 high-level architecture (based on Prysmatic clients and spec for Phase 0)

The preceding diagram shows a validator node and a beacon node with their different services running on different ports. The structure of a beacon block is also shown on the left-hand side, including the fields of the block header and body as per the Phase 0 specifications.

Now that we have a good understanding of Ethereum 2.0's design goals, its phases, and architecture, you can put your new knowledge into practice. Doing so is out of the scope of this chapter, but by accessing this book's bonus content pages here: https://static...

Summary

In this chapter, we looked at Ethereum 2.0. We explored various aspects of its architecture and the overall vision behind the development of Ethereum 2.0.

Currently, Ethereum 2.0 is under heavy development and only Phase 0, the beacon chain, is expected to launch in 2020. As the design of Phase 0 is finalized, nothing much is expected to change with the production release of the beacon chain. The techniques and examples used in this chapter can be used for the production chain too, once it's available.

We have also demonstrated in this book's bonus content pages, which we strongly encourage the reader to make use of, how to run Ethereum 2.0 beacon and validator clients. Remember that as the development of Ethereum 2.0 is rapidly evolving, some of the steps mentioned may change slightly, or the testnet that we used may be retracted. However, the steps are essentially the same; you may just have to slightly tweak the commands and run it on a different testnet...

The rest of the chapter is locked

You have been reading a chapter from

Mastering Blockchain.. - Third Edition

Published in: Aug 2020Publisher: PacktISBN-13: 9781839213199

A free Packt account unlocks extra newsletters, articles, discounted offers, and much more. Start advancing your knowledge today.

undefined

Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days

Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of

Start free trial

Renews at $15.99/month. Cancel anytime

Author (1)

Imran Bashir

Imran Bashir has an M.Sc. in Information Security from Royal Holloway, University of London, and has a background in software development, solution architecture, infrastructure management, and IT service management. He is also a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the British Computer Society (BCS). Imran has extensive experience in both the public and financial sectors, having worked on large-scale IT projects in the public sector before moving to the financial services industry. Since then, he has worked in various technical roles for different financial companies in Europe's financial capital, London.
Read more about Imran Bashir

Personalised recommendations for you

Based on your interests and search pattern

Et al.

Ever wonder why speech recognition systems don't understand the Scottish accent, or what would happen if an astronaut only ate mac 'n' cheese, or other spurious reflections you'd have at a bar? We did, then collated those deliberations into absurd research articles with fake figures and methodologies inspired by even more fictionally absurd studies.

BookAug 2023230 pages5

Generative AI with LangChain

This book is a comprehensive introduction to LLMs and LangChain, demystifying the basic mechanics of LangChain, its functionalities, and the myriad of applications it can be integrated into.

BookDec 2023360 pages4

Generative AI with LangChain

This book is a comprehensive introduction to LLMs and LangChain, demystifying the basic mechanics of LangChain, its functionalities, and the myriad of applications it can be integrated into.

BookDec 2023360 pages5

Generative AI with LangChain

This book is a comprehensive introduction to LLMs and LangChain, demystifying the basic mechanics of LangChain, its functionalities, and the myriad of applications it can be integrated into.

BookDec 2023360 pages1

Generative AI with LangChain

This book is a comprehensive introduction to LLMs and LangChain, demystifying the basic mechanics of LangChain, its functionalities, and the myriad of applications it can be integrated into.

BookDec 2023360 pages5

Mastering Tableau 2023

This book is a comprehensive resource to mastering your Tableau skills and becoming a BI expert. As you progress, you will learn how to build advanced dashboards and improve your storytelling to derive key business insight, as well as make you well-versed with advanced functionalities of Tableau in the business intelligence domain.

BookAug 2023684 pages

Building AI Applications with ChatGPT APIs

This guide covers all ChatGPT API features for effortless creation of robust AI powered apps. With its help, you’ll be able to leverage ChatGPT’s cutting-edge NLP models to take your app development skills to the next level. You’ll also work on ten exciting projects that will give you the practical know-how that you can apply to your existing applications.

BookSep 2023258 pages5

Building AI Applications with ChatGPT APIs

This guide covers all ChatGPT API features for effortless creation of robust AI powered apps. With its help, you’ll be able to leverage ChatGPT’s cutting-edge NLP models to take your app development skills to the next level. You’ll also work on ten exciting projects that will give you the practical know-how that you can apply to your existing applications.

BookSep 2023258 pages2

Data Engineering with AWS

Embark on a journey to master data engineering pipelines on AWS! Our book offers a hands-on experience of AWS services for ingesting, transforming, and consuming data. Whether you're an absolute beginner or someone with basic data engineering experience, this guide is an indispensable resource.

BookOct 2023636 pages5

Modern Data Architecture on AWS

Every organization wants an agile, performant, and cost-effective data platform that meets all their current and future business needs. Purpose-built AWS analytics services and their features play a big part in building such a modern data platform. This book brings to you all the design and architectural patterns that’ll help you achieve this goal.

BookAug 2023420 pages5

Practical Guide to Applied Conformal Prediction in Python

Discover the power of Conformal Prediction with the "Practical Guide to Applied Conformal Prediction in Python." Master the latest techniques to quantify uncertainty in machine learning and computer vision models, and seamlessly apply them to your industry applications.

BookDec 2023240 pages

TinyML Cookbook

With over 70 project-based recipes, the TinyML Cookbook is a practical guide that will help you to get the most out of your microcontrollers. It provides a comprehensive understanding of the theoretical foundations while giving you hands-on experience training ML models for deployment on Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense, Raspberry Pi Pico, and SparkFun RedBoard Artemis Nano microcontrollers.

BookNov 2023664 pages