Ethereum Roadmap
Ethereum Roadmap, steps toward Proof-of-Stake
Ethereum is a very ambitious process. Since it's inception there have always been delays on new releases. Of course, with a major and revolutionary project as Ethereum, there will always be unknown that aren't factored upfront into the build. Ethereum has a built-in programming language that allows you to specify whatever "rules" for a smart contract that you want, and the blockchain executes them for you. Another thing that raises complexity is that Ethereum cliens have different programing languages, and making changes to all of them is a tricky and difficult task.
Ethereum project, a change from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake has been planned in four locksteps. Just like the previous two, switch to Metropolis requires a hard fork. This means that nodes and miners that fail to upgrade to the new blockchain will be left behind. Because of the possibility of a split, hard forks are always taken seriously seriously. There was one hardfork after DAO hack, resulting in a chain split. And, that did not help Ethereum, it took one year for price to recover.
Frontier
Ethereum Frontier was the first live release of the Ethereum network. It was released on July 2015. Frontier was backbone of Ethereum ecosystem allowing people to start mining and also for exchanges to start running. This was the first version, which paved the way for further development.
Homestead
Homestead is the second major Ethereum upgrade and the current phase that we are right now. The development included several protocol upgrades creating the ability to do further changes.
Metropolis
Metropolis is next major Ethereum upgrade. This is the version that will open the door to masses. Metropolis was introduced on github for testing and its just a matter of time before it goes live. Not only introcuding further protocol upgrades and opening the door for casper, but also new interfaces for non technical users. This will help gain further adaptation and also it will help developers create easy to use apps.
Serenity
Serenity is the last phase in Ethereum network. Release was planned for the start of 2018, but we might have some delays, as usually. Serenity goal is to switch from proof-of work to proof-of-stake, by using a method called Casper.
The benefits of proof-of-stake
Currently Bitcoin and Ethereum to validate the transactions use a method called proof-of-work which means that miners have to solve crypto-puzzles using dedicated hardware. For every block they mine they will get rewarded with new issued coins. The problem is that there is always a competition who will be the first to solve the problem, which means there will be a lot of electricity spent. This incentivize miners to act within network rules, otherwise their block will not be accepted by the network, resulting in a waste of energy spend and no rewards to cover electricity bill at the end of the month.
The solution is proof-of-stake. This system means that it will make the entire mining virtual. Instead of having miners to validate transaction, we will have validators. Validators will stake their ethereum to be part of validating process. Currently it is is speculated that the minimum is 1,000 ether are required to be staked in order to be part of staking. With current prices, it is around $200,000. Stakers will be rewarded with transaction fees, and if they don't act accordingly their stake will be confiscated by the network.
There are a lot of benefits with proof-of-stake. The most important is energy. Bitcoin miners alone currently spend around $50,000 dollars per hour, day and night. This is a lot. This means that around $450 million dollars a year are spend just to keep bitcoin ecosystem up and running. This can't go on forever. By switching to proof-of-stake, it will make the whole ecosystem virtual and will cut almost all electricity cost. With proof-of-stake you can use your laptop to validate transactions, and collect fees.
This makes the whole system way more secure, because it will be more costly to try and attack the system. 1,000 ether is more expensive than electricity bill, because it will be taken away almost immediately if somebody tries to act funny. This makes almost impossible 51% attacks, compared to proof-of-work. Other benefits will be no special equipments advantage (like ASIC advantage on Bitcoin network). Block creation will be way faster and also will make the blockchain scalable by introducing the concept of “sharding”.
In comparison Bitcoin can approve 3-4 transactions per second and Ethereum around 20 transaction. It is estimated that Visa network can process around 55,000 transactions per second. This is minuscule compared to Ethereum network after introduction of Casper. With Sharding method, Ethereum ecosystem will be able to validate 1 million transactions per second, creating for the first time possibility of micro-payments.
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Disclaimer: The information contained herein is not guaranteed, does not purport to be comprehensive and is strictly for information purposes only. It should not be regarded as investment/trading advice.
Does anyone know when Ethereum is planning to fully introduce PoS? Thanks people :)
Byzantium fork just happened.
Have you any predicted dates for these handy ? Thats what I came here for.
August or September for Metropolis, then early 2018 for Serenity. Nobody knows for sure, this is just the best guess. Few months to a year is not too much, if you hold Ether you should not think about selling. After POS we will have mass adaptation and Ether price will be way higher than now.
Great write up. I need to read up on the upcoming releases.
Interesting post.I follow you.
Do not forget to vote in my post. Thank you.
bookmarked.
Very well written article, i can only presume you will and should get a decent number of upvotes for this. You got mine anyway. If you have some more specific info around exact dates the phases were originally planned to be completed that would be great. By the way, the POS with 1000ETH will not make this currency better in my opinion. It will force a centralization of ownership of large investors and will decrease the appeal to hold the currency. Why have such a huge threshold is a mystery for me still.
On a side note, i like some of your other posts as well, will follow you going forwards. You might find it interesting checking mine out and following back if appealing. In any case well done and keep em coming! Cheers
Hi @attalis thanks a lot for your comment. I nobody knows dates for sure, but Metropolis should come within 2-3 months. With Metropolis its expected also decrease of mining rewards which will be positive for ethereum price. POS should come out next year. For 1000 Ether, I think there will be the possibility of pools, lets say I have 500 ether and you have 500 ether, we can create a pool and stake and share the rewards. I believe in ethereum development team, and they wont let Ethereum be centralized like Bitcoin is.
Thanks, I followed you too.
thanks. yeah i read about those pools too. not sure why that is better than single POS 'miners'. Indeed its an option to do, but still, what is the point? In that case we may suddenly have a few very powerful pools that are currently in BTC as well, but then as POW...
It's because masternodes are verifying transactions. The high amount(1000 ETH) is required so you can't cheat. Otherwise you could alter transactions and not get penalized. If you try to cheat the system and make fake transactions, you will end up losing the 1000ETH. It's a kind of a bail and assurance to the ETH network that you will only verify valid transactions
Understood but could a POS pool still not do the same thing, but then with other peoples money?
@attalis you have a valid point, lets wait and see. Also 1000 Ether is not a sure thing, it can be less. I'm just assuming but it should be possible to create decentralized pools that rules can't be changed. This is just the beginning and possibilities are endless.
I myself am environmentalist and I think its a waste of resources for proof of work. There are other, nature friendly options.
If the one controlling the pool has access to the funds, they could just take your funds instead.
The point is, you shouldn't be able to gain more than you can lose. So even if you managed to cheat and get 900ETH, it's supposed to be so you can never get more than 1000ETH, and your profit will always be negative(loss)
Would the nearest update in ETH make any change to network fee for sending tokens? I lately make some checks and the fees for sending tokens on various exchanges are starting with 0,5 for a token and in some cases are close to 5-15, which in the long term (especially with growing price) make those tokens useless.
With ETH scaling, fees should go down to almost nothing. That is about fees on ETH network, which should push down exchange fees. Still even if ETH fees go to zero, exchanges can charge, just like some banks charge if you take out your money. What im trying to say fees on the network and exchange are different thing. Excample: gdax does not change fees for withdrawals, the company covers the cost.
Yes I know that - still even when you consider those on like myetherwallet the gas we shoud add is also very high. But in case of BTC it might turn out to be some value store asset, eth is more for various micro transactions/rewarding so fees should really be much lower. Is there any estimate date when those fees might change? Would it also implicate another ETH forks?
I agree with you, the way bitcoin is going, it will be only a store of value. The problem is, the real value will come if people can use the token for everyday use, that will be the intrinsic value. If bitcoin is just a store of value, its very likely it will fail.
About Ethereum, fees will change slowly with Proof of Stake, but for fees to go down, Ethereum needs to be mass adopted. Let's say transaction validators need a certain amount of funds every day to keep the system going, cover their costs and get a profit. The more transactions there are, they cheaper they can approve a transaction and still be profitable.
Dude I read its 10 ether? to Stake
Most likely they will start with more, like 100 or 1000 but they plan to scale to 10 ether. Thats what Vlad Zamfir said in an interview.
Thanks for this info..
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