What Is Ethereum 2.0 and When Will It Be Ready?

Launched in 2015, Ethereum is an open-source, blockchain-based, decentralized software platform that powers the second-largest (by market capitalization) cryptocurrency called Ether (ETH).

Ethereum 2.0 is a set of upgrades currently in progress that would make the Ethereum blockchain more scalable and sustainable that includes a transition from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS) protocol that would make the validation of blockchain transactions way much more energy efficient.

Ethereum 2.0 would increase the transaction throughput from about 15 transactions per second to up to tens of thousands of transactions per second. The upgraded scalability would be achieved by splitting up the workload into many blockchains running in parallel (referred to as sharding) and then having them all share a common consensus proof-of-stake blockchain -- called the Beacon Chain.

Ethereum 2.0 (also known as Serenity) is designed to be launched in three phases:

1. "Phase 0" was launched on 1 December 2020 and created the Beacon Chain, a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain that will act as the central coordination and consensus hub of Ethereum 2.0.
2. "Phase 1" will create shard chains and connect them to the Beacon Chain.
3. "Phase 2" will implement state execution in the shard chains with the current Ethereum 1.0 chain expected to become one of the shards of Ethereum 2.0.