2.0 developers are sure that the Phase 0 of the network’s upgrade will be launched this year.
Ethereum's major network upgrade, Ethereum 2.0 (a.k.a. Serenity), should be rolled out in phases, the first of which is Phase 0. The upgrade will bring, among other things, , proof-of-stake (PoS), and a new virtual machine.
On Wednesday, ETH 2.0 research team took to Reddit for their third AMA (ask me anything) session, where anybody interested in the network and in its recent development could participate to ask what they’re curious about.
One of those questions is an often asked one – realistically, when could the Cryptoverse see Phase 0 rolled out? “I don't see a reality in which Phase 0 does not launch in 2020,” writes team member Danny Ryan. He explained that testnets are stronger with each week, and that audits are out, but also saying that such estimates depend on the specifications and on clients being deemed ready in third-party audits. “The rest depends [on] engineering concerns and stabilizing/optimizing in this last mile of work.”
Nonetheless, the current Ethereum chain is strong on its own and will stay so for the next couple of years, he says, as client teams make “heroic” gains in optimizations and layer 2 constructions are being implemented. Also, “ETH 1 living inside of ETH 2 allows for native access to the scalable sharded data layer,” says Ryan.
While Ryan finds that Phase 0 will “certainly” launch in 2020, his colleague Justin Drake is somewhat more cautious, positioning his confidence in this happening at 95%. Drake finds Ethereum’s 5th anniversary on July 30, as a good deadline, believing a launch is unlikely in Q1 and Q2, particularly if three clients are to be production-ready for launch.
Some people seem to have gotten frustrated with the deadline for Phase 0 being pushed back again, but the developers explained that as certain changes had to be made to Phase 0 specs to accommodate Phase 1’s new direction, extending the deadline was necessary. “There are significant unknowns in the next couple of months,” and audits to be completed, so setting a firm date is not possible, says Ryan.
Hodling vs. staking
As for the need for users’ ETH accounts to prepare for 2.0, Hsiao-Wei Wang said that no additional procedures need be done to ETH 1 accounts currently, while Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote that “if you are just holding ETH and want to keep your money, in all present proposals there is no risk from you going into a cave for five years. If you want to stake, then, of course, you have to actively deposit.”
