Binance

Danny Ryan, the ethereum 2.0 coordinator, has announced the final release of the ethereum 2.0 spec version 0.1.

“Major release centered on the integration of the IETF BLS standards into the eth2 spec,” Ryan said, further adding:

“This release also contains a deep and much-needed reorganization of files/directories…

The rest of the changes are some minor optimizations and cleanups. Most of these are generally backward compatible, and all should be very straight forward to integrate.

v0.10.0 marks a stable target for Phase 0 for multi-client testnets and security reviews. We expect some revisions in February/March pending the results from each.”

Ben Edgington of PegaSys, one of the ethereum 2.0 clients, clarified this version release is “intended to be another frozen release, as the basis for both testnets and an audit.”

An audit of the deposit contract is ongoing, in addition to audits regarding the Beacon chain code, with eth2.0 clients waiting for this version release before planning any multi-client testnet launch.

Although the stated changes are in regards to the signature standards, there were some changes to the Beacon chain design itself late last year with that all now finalized.

Just how many of these changes have been incorporated by eth 2.0 clients is unclear with the major ones having to restart their client-specific testnets.

Yet this release is a crucial step towards the full launch, with coders and everyone else now awaiting the audit reports which might require some further changes.

“There’s a 13,000 long queue of validators waiting to enter,” the Prysm testnet says, Edgington. “New validators are onboarded at a maximum rate of 4 per epoch at the start, so that’s two weeks of the backlog by my calculations!”

Some of these testnets have now upgraded to mainnet configuration, with quite a few prospective stakers so seemingly testing it all out.

You’d think they’d run for a bit at this state while waiting for the audits, with the multi-client testnet launch than being the key indicator.

Justin Drake, an eth researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, has set the unofficial non-deadline of 30th July for the launch of the genesis block.

That timeline appears to be the reasonable estimate of by when realistically this might go live, with the multi-client testnet needing around three months of smooth running.

If this testnet goes out this winter, late spring or early summer and just after the bitcoin halvening is probably when the Proof of Stake blockchain launches presuming all goes well.