Ethereum’s transition from the widely used proof-of-work, to the more energy-efficient proof-of-stake consensus algorithm has been one of the most anticipated events in the cryptoverse.
Initially introduced in December 2020, users have had to wait for over a year for the full PoS transition. In a recent podcast appearance, Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin has provided updates on the progress of the network’s transition.
Proof-of-Stake Transition is 50% Complete
Talking with Bankless Buterin revealed that the development efforts for the PoS transition were more than 50% done. Referencing his Endgame article for the network, Buterin explains that the first step will be to merge the Ethereum network.
Sponsored
Along with the Kintsugi Testnet, Ethereum predicts that the merger will be completed in the first half of 2022.
The next step will then be to implement surge and sharding on the network, at which point Buterin believes the network will be at 80% completion.
The surge is expected to happen once the Ethereum network has been merged. The surge aims to give Ethereum increased scalability, massive bandwidth, and throughput, particularly on zk-Rollups.
On the Flipside
- According to Buterin, once the merger and surge have been carried out it will still take Ethereum another six years to reach full network completion.
Buterin calls the next phase “the verge.” According to Ethereum’s co-creator, this phase will see him and his team enable certain modules to allow more users to run nodes.
When the verge has been completed completed, it will be followed up by the “purge” and “splurge” phases. He explained that purge and splurge will eliminate the historical data on the network, and add miscellaneous upgrades.
Why You Should Care
Although the upgrade is still its early stages, there have already been significant improvements to the network. It’ll be interesting to see how the rest of Ethereum 2.0 unfolds.