ETH becomes ETH2
Ethereum’s protocol is set to change with a major upgrade. The upgrade will be called Ethereum 2.0 or Eth2. First, however, Ethereum 2.0 itself will be changed. The goal of the upgrade to Ethereum 2.0 is to change Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).This should make the ETH network more scalable, decentralized and secure. The upgrade or change to the protocol has been in the works for several years. Unfortunately, the development will take even longer. What has not yet been accomplished in technical terms will be compensated for by a name change: The Ethereum Foundation has announced a significant term change to the upgrade. While keeping the original concept, only the name “Ethereum 2.0” will be dropped.
Instead of abbreviations and version names, developers have already been using new, less confusing terms since late last year:
– “Execution Layer” instead of “Eth1”
– “Consensus Layer” instead of “Eth2”.
– “Ethereum” now refers to the execution and consensus layer
Why all this?
The Ethereum Foundation explains on its blog that the renaming of the upgrade has several reasons: To improve the external perception of new users and to avoid a false impression. They want to avoid the impression that Eth1 would be first and Eth2 second, or that Eth2 would replace Eth1 like a software update. The name change is thus intended to provide more clarity.
Map update: The 2019 roadmap was named “Ethereum 2.0” and is no longer current. The name change is intended to clarify this. Furthermore, fraud is to be prevented, as in the past supposed ETH2 tokens were repeatedly sold by criminals to the ignorant. Instead of exchanging allegedly “outdated” ETH for new ETH2, the ETH tokens were stolen. A stop is now to be put to this.
The intention to provide more clarity in staking goes in a similar direction. Some staking providers caused confusion by claiming to distribute so-called ETH2 tokens, which do not exist. Instead, they were “simply representing a share of a particular provider’s stake,” as the Foundation clarifies.
What next?
The roadmap for the transition to a proof-of-stake network does not change as a result of the renaming. The Ethereum Foundation announced that individual features within the roadmap will now be referred to as upgrades – for example, the Beacon Chain, Merge and Shard Chains, which have already been enacted. The Foundation reserves the right to make further changes as part of Ethereum’s large-scale transition. In addition, the name of the Eth2 launchpad will be changed to “Ethereum Staking Launchpad.”