Ethereum 2.0 is nearing its final stages of launching with it expected around January-March 2020.

A key component, the ETH1 bridge or the deposit contract, is going through a “blockchains” standardization process, meaning a number of blockchain projects agreeing to use certain cryptography, BLS signatures, in a certain way.

That’s in part because cryptographers are few and far between, so you want a standard to which they all agree to facilitate cross-research between all cryptographers regardless of what blockchain they’re working on.

This has slightly delayed the launch of the deposit contract, which is finalized and is just waiting for this agreement between blockchain projects.

However, it hasn’t delayed it by much and it isn’t clear whether it matters for the genesis block launch, with Ben Edgington of PegaSys telling Trustnodes:

“I am not a decision maker, but have talked to various people involved. The new BLS spec has been stable for some time and is thought to be unlikely to change further.

Very soon (weeks) the blockchains adopting this will agree that it is frozen. Note that formal standardisation will take much longer, but we’re not concerned with that.

Tools to sign the deposit data based on the new method will be implemented.

The deposit contract will go live. I’d expect this last step by year-end, but that’s speculative. I don’t see a reason it would take longer than that.”

By formal standardization he means the IETF committee, which would probably take far too long. The blockchain projects instead will agree their own standards which they expect the committee to adopt, but if they don’t, there would be a blockchain standard.

The other aspect to the ethereum 2.0 launch is the testnet. Preston Van Loon of Prysmatic Labs initially said when asked about the testnet: “I am not aware of any other client that has the ETH1 bridge…

By ETH1 bridge I meant reading and voting about ETH1 data, the deposit contract specifically.”

After some discuss with other devs, they found a way around it, so he said they will now attempt a cross client testnet this week.

Meaning the deposit contract might not hold up other aspects. So if the bridge does launch by year end, it would be a nice Christmas present as it’s only relevant for just sending eth to it as far as end users are concerned.

They should hopefully first see on the testnet what the Beacon is like and how to set-up their staking system to better decide whether they do want to send eth to the contract.

Then they’ll have some weeks to actually send it, with the finale being the launch itself sometime this winter, which sounds like it hasn’t been delayed by the deposit contract if it does go out this year.

Copyrights Trustnodes.com