Goodbye, ETH 2.0

It is no news that the Ethereum network is transitioning from the current Ethereum Classic blockchain to its latest beacon chain upgrade, ETH 2.0. This development has led to many users trying to move their stake from the current ETH 1.0 platform to ETH 2.0 in order to qualify as Validators, which will afford them the opportunity to have a large influence on the running of the blockchain and propose new blocks on the novel ETH 2.0 when it is finally up and running. This upgrade is expected to take place in the first or second quarter of the year. However, there has been a recent development as the Ethereum network announced its withdrawal of ETH 2.0. What does this mean?

The Ethereum network has made a decision to rebrand its network in a bit to avoid confusion among users. The ETH network has officially withdrawn the terminologies ‘ETH 1.0’ and ‘ETH 2.0’. This decision to rebrand is said to be towards the main aim of avoiding future mix-ups or confusion between the two terms, and also to deter scammers who might want to take advantage of such opportunities to exploit users.

https://twitter.com/ethdotorg/status/1485644472880877572?s=20

What Will Be The New Name Then?

The network, through a blog post on January 24, 2022, disclosed that ETH 1.0 would now be referred to as ‘execution layer’ while ETH 2.0 would be known going forward as ‘consensus layer’. Although they now have different names, they will be collectively referred to as Ethereum.

https://twitter.com/Ethereum_01/status/1485910972305121282?s=20

The execution layer is representative of the current PoW protocol that runs on the ETH blockchain. The transition is currently ongoing to the PoS protocol, which will be backed up by the beacon chain. This takeover is going to happen after the two blockchains have been merged, now known as the consensus layer. This merger has been speculatively declared to take place in June 2022.

In the consensus layer, users are required to stake a fixed 32 ETHs in order to qualify as a Validator. This upgrade will improve the scalability of the network, lower transaction fees, boost network speed and improve the blockchain’s security.

Reasons Behind The Rebranding

In the blog post, the ETH team expressed their concerns about the likelihood of confusion the recently scrapped terminologies will pose on new users. That they may think the launch of ETH 2.0 means the non-existence of ETH 1.0, which of course is false. According to the team, following the upgrade, the two concepts will function together for the running of the collective Ethereum network.

Another main reason is for the protection of users against scams perpetrated by dishonest people who might take advantage of the numerals ending the terms to trick users into a panic mode and convince them that they must transfer their stake from ETH 1.0 to ETH 2.0. This can lead to loss of funds.

What do you think about this rebranding? Let us know in the comments below.