Ethereum 2.0 Genesis Day date revealed

By Barclay Ballard
published

Seems that Ethereum 2.0 is on the way after all

Ethereum 2.0
(Image credit: Ethereum Foundation / Liam Cobb)

The launch of Ethereum 2.0 (opens in new tab) is set to take place on December 1 after all, following concerns that the staking threshold required to set up the Beacon Chain, an interim blockchain that will operate alongside the current network, would not be met.

Just over a week ago (opens in new tab), it seemed unlikely that the threshold would be met with the Ethereum 2.0 staking deadline looming. The threshold meant that 16,384 validators needed to stake a minimum of 32 ether (the cryptocurrency underpinning the network), equivalent to around $14,800 at current market rates.

However, on November 24, Ethereum 2.0 researcher Justin Drake tweeted (opens in new tab) that the genesis time for the Beacon Chain launch had been set for December 1 at 12:00 UTC, confirming that the necessary ether had been deposited.

The second coming

All of Ethereum 2.0’s primary implementations have agreed upon the same precise code origins for the new blockchain. Although having a genesis date set in stone is only the first step on the way to launching Ethereum 2.0, it is an important hurdle to clear.

“I would say we are comfortably half-way through the overall effort to make [Ethereum 2.0] feature complete,” Drake told CoinDesk (opens in new tab) over direct message. “The research (which lasted years!) is largely done and the phase 0 genesis is definitely a significant implementation milestone. Phase 0 lays the heavy-duty foundations (signatures, Merkleisation, networking, Eth 1 deposits, randomness, PoS, etc.). Many of the upcoming hard forks will layer relatively thin infrastructure on top of these foundations.”

The process of rolling out Ethereum 2.0 is a long one and Drake does not expect the new cryptocurrency to formally launch until mid-2023. It could be worth the wait, however, bringing a number of improvements, particularly in terms of the number of transactions it can manage.

Via CoinDesk (opens in new tab)

Barclay Ballard
Barclay Ballard

Barclay has been writing about technology for a decade, starting out as a freelancer with ITProPortal covering everything from London’s start-up scene to comparisons of the best cloud storage services.  After that, he spent some time as the managing editor of an online outlet focusing on cloud computing, furthering his interest in virtualization, Big Data, and the Internet of Things. 



See more Computing news