The Ethereum Network is approaching a merger phase of a significant transition from Proof of Work (PoW) mining consensus to Proof of Stake (PoS). The developers of Ethereum (ETH) presented a permanent merger date at a conference call on Thursday.
At the conference call, Tim Beiko, the core Ethereum developer who runs the Core Protocol Conference, proposed September 19 as the tentative target date for the merger. The proposed target date did not face any objections from the core developers.
Later, Ethereum developer superphiz.eth tweeted about the merger roadmap, revealing that the proposed target date should be considered a roadmap rather than a strict deadline.
The timeline for this merge isn’t final, but it’s very exciting to see them together. Think of this as a planning timeline and watch out for official announcements! https: //t.co/ttutBceZ21 pic.twitter.com/MY8VFOv0SI
— Superphiz.eth (@superphiz) July 14, 2022
Ethereum’s journey to PoS-based ETH 2.0 began on December 1, 2020, with the launch of the Beacon Chain and the start of Phase 0 of the transition. Phase 1 of the program was scheduled to begin in mid-2021, but was postponed to the first quarter of 2022 due to incomplete work and the complexity associated with code auditing.
Earlier this June, the Seporia testnet Beacon Chain went live and was ready for a Merge dress rehearsal to provide valuable technical insights to Ethereum network developers. Seporia was finally integrated with the network on July 7.
The final trial of the merge is set to take place on the Goerli network, scheduled for the second week of August. After the merger, the official merger scheduled for late September will be a developer priority.
The move to Ethereum’s PoS-based network is expected to reduce energy consumption by 99%, and the introduction of sharding (expected by the first quarter of 2023) will make the network highly scalable and centralized. Equivalent to a type payment processor.
Related: Vitalik argues that stake proof is a “solution” to Ethereum’s environmental problems.
The PoS vs. PoW debate is long-standing, with PoS proponents claiming to be environmentally friendly and equally safe, while PoW proponents such as Jack Dorsey are centralizing PoS. , Called low safety.
Recently, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has been an active advocate of PoS, and contrary to common belief, PoS is not included in Proof of Work (PoW). Does not include voting for protocol parameters. Buterin also explained that the node rejects invalid blocks in both PoS and PoW.
Tip: There is a long tradition of people discussing A vs. B based on deep discussions that touch on mathematics, economics, and moral philosophy, saying “B is stupid because of one line of expertise, including definitions.” If you are probably wrong. https://t.co/22N0OaHyz1
— Vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) July 3, 2022
Buterin continues to counter PoS, but recent reports from HOPR have highlighted some of the major vulnerabilities that could pose a serious problem after the merge.
“It should be emphasized that this is not an emergency. It does not affect today’s funding. But this becomes a big issue after the merge, and validators have millions of $$ in MEV. Motivated to confuse each other in order to steal share. “
The report emphasized that validators on the network leak IP addresses when broadcasting attestations and blocks linked to public keys, because these validators are known in advance. Allows highly targeted and selective attacks (DoS or others) against future validators.
The @Teku_ConsenSys Audit by @Quantstamp We could label this issue as “Mitigated,” but this is not correct in our eyes and doubles our efforts to raise awareness of this privacy and the resulting security issues.
5/15— HOPR (@hoprnet) July 12, 2022
The HOPR team noted that the audit report labeled the issue as “mitigated.” This is not true as the attacker is not limited to attacking Teku nodes (DoS).
