The Ethereum Foundation has worked hard on scaling the network over the past few years. On December 1 the core developers have finally launched Ethereum 2.0, the most ambitious upgrade in the history of cryptocurrencies.
To showcase all the hardships faced during the development process, Messari researcher Wilson Withiam wrote about the entire history of Ethereum 2.0.
Codenamed Serenity, developers imagined Ethereum 2.0 from the very start as a network update that would migrate the old Proof-of-Work network to a Proof-of-Stake network. By doing so, they would finally solve the blockchain trilemma and create a network that is scalable, secure, and decentralized.
But at the time PoS networks offered two serious security problems, including long-range attacks and the so-called nothing at stake problem. Besides that aspect, developers were also incapable of creating a solution that brings scalability without centralization.
Therefore, Ethereum developers worked an entire year on discovering a potential solution that could remove these issues.
Withiam explains that Vlad Zamfir and Vitalik Buterin proposed in 2014 to use sharding, validator security deposits, and weak subjectivity. By combining these three features, they could overcome almost all problems.
Moreover, migrating from PoW to PoS meant that Ethereum 2.0 could provide many advantages at the price of introducing trust in a trustless system.
At the end of 2015, Vlad Zamfir soon began to work on the deposit-based PoS which he codenamed Casper. Sharding and other Proof-of-Stake concepts would soon make the foundation stones of Serenity.
However, progress did not come instantly as the project faced many problems. Vitalik describes this period as having many failed attempts at implementing the aforementioned features into Ethereum 2.0.
History of Ethereum 2.0 betwen 2016 & 2017
Several months into 2016, Ethereum experienced numerous difficulties and attacks. It all began when the team had to redirect its resources from Serenity to the original network.
Why? Withiam explains that the team had to deal with the DAO Fork in June 2016 which became incredibly tiresome for the developers. They also had to deal with the Shanghai attacks later on, which also required more attention from the team.
Nevertheless, the ICO boom completely changed the situation. The Ethereum Foundation finally received enough funds from the community to push its project forward. Moreover, the surge in demand made the developers realize that scalability is more important than ever.
But just as now, developers had no idea how to work on two projects at the same time. On one hand, they had to support and develop the existing PoW network. On the other hand, the only way to progress further was bring scalability by creating Ethereum 2.0.
ETH2 made possible by the bear market?
The Messari researcher notes that as the bull run calmed down in 2018, the team finally had a moment where they could focus on Serenity. The original team has sharded into two groups who operated independently on separate features. Despite this, they were still able to work on Ethereum 2.0 while at the same time supporting ETH1.
Finally, the Ethereum Foundation realized that the only way to evolve was to completely change the strategy. Instead of constantly shifting their focus from one project to another, the team decided to synergize both networks.
For the first time since conceptualizing Ethereum 2.0, the developers thought of working on Serenity only to, later on, merge the two networks. This would lower the number of resources required as the developers could keep ETH1 alive while slowly launching ETH2 into phases.
This week’s launch has been made possible entirely thanks to 2018, as developers had the time to formalize Ethereum 2.0’s design, audit the smart contracts and experiment with testnets. Thanks to this ‘roll-out’ system, Withiam states that it was possible to solve blockchain’s biggest problems.