The development of Ethereum 2.0 continues to make great strides, according to a development update.

However, a release date for Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 with version 1.0.0 can still not be estimated, according to the Ethereum Foundation.

In an Ethereum Foundation blog post published yesterday, January 16, Danny Ryan has provided an update on the development progress of Ethereum 2.0, also called Serenity. The eagerly awaited transition to the Proof of Stake and a scalable Ethereum blockchain, which will be introduced with Phase 0, is expected to happen this summer. However, an exact date is not set yet. Phase 0 will provide the basic functionalities for the Beacon Chain, the validators and the coordination of shards, whereby the Beacon Chain (Eth2) will exist alongside Eth1.

With Ethereum 2.0 v0.10.0, new specifications have recently been released. According to Ryan, “v0.10.0 is the culmination of the changes introduced to the Phase 0 specification”. He wrote that with the release of v0.10.0, very stable software is once again available for client test networks as well as for third-party audits and security reviews:

For some time, these new spec changes disrupted the smooth development cycle of the eth2 client teams and postponed the release of testnets that were imminent. With the release of v0.10.0 we are now entering back into a smooth rhythm.

Least Authority has now started a security audit to verify the code:

We have high expectations and are enthusiastic to be working with a team of such caliber!

Another news is the testing and formalization of the Phase 0 token economy under the leadership of a new Ethereum Foundation team, the Robust Incentives Group (RIG). The group is responsible for simulating the economic eth2 models and a variety of attacks, such as timing attacks and attacks by cartels of different sizes. For this purpose RIG has set up a cadCAD simulation environment.

When will Ethereum 2.0 v.1.0.0 be released?

As Ryan describes, v.0.10.0 is the basis for further testing by multi-client test networks, in parallel to the ongoing audits. He expects that single-client test networks will join together to test the interoperability of the various client applications. This could result in a “chaos” that will significantly advance development progress:

I expect some level of chaos and a lot of learning in this phase. Ambiguities in the spec might become apparent with minor clarifying changes integrated. We might even find out something was broken that we previously thought was fine – large testnets are their own form of audit.

Once the audit results arrive during February, there will probably be major changes to the Phase 0 specification. According to Ryan, the extent of the changes will have a significant impact on the development and timing of the clients. Regardless of this, the changes will culminate in a v0.11.0 release around the beginning of March.

Depending on the changes’ severity, the clients will integrate the changes into their software, patch the testnets, and move on. If the changes are more profound, the integrations could take longer, require additional testing and complete reboots of existing networks. A release date for Ethereum 2.0 v.1.0.0 is therefore difficult to predict.

After sufficient time at a stable v0.11.x, a final v1.0.0 will be cut for mainnet release: the exact length of time will depend on the depth of the changes.

Prysmatic Labs starts test network with tens of thousands of validators and phase 1.5

Prysmatic Labs recently restarted its public test network with a mainnet configuration and larger caches, longer epochs and a generally more powerful configuration than the minimal configuration originally used. Ryan explained:

Operating a stable testnet with this configuration and 10s of thousands of validators is an important milestone that Prysmatic is currently working through.

Finally, Ryan also touched on Vitalik Buterin’s recently adopted proposal to accelerate the transition to Ethereum 2.0. The proposal is to migrate eth1 to a shard of eth2 after the infrastructure is added to phase 1 (shard data chain) but before a full phase 2, which is why Ryan calls it a transition phase, phase 1.5. This phase will foster the so-called “rollups”, such as the ZK Sync technology developed by Master Labs, and provide native access to the scalable sharded data layer.

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