Phase 0 or Beacon Chain is an initial stage of Ethereum (ETH) 2.0 Proof-of-Stake network. Today Ethereum Foundation published a verbalized thesis on how it will run

Ethereum Foundation has published a document called 'Phase 0 for Humans [v0.10.0]'. It demonstrates the details of Ethereum (ETH) 2.0 network design.

The Heavy Burden Of Validators

One of the main purposes of ETH2 Phase 0 is to organize the interaction of validators responsible for the transactions' confirmation.

Just updated the "Phase 0 for Humans" doc to v0.10.0. We use this to help onboard new contributors, auditors, etchttps://t.co/HCoQM0rWZ6



Thanks @protolambda and @CarlBeek for helping put this together! — dannyryan (@dannyryan) January 12, 2020

According to Danny Ryan, Ethereum's team lead, the Beacon Chain can also be dubbed as “system chain” or “spine chain” since:

This chain stores and manages the registry of validators in which the validators are assigned to their duties.

Developers described five main functions of validators in Beacon Chain:

Perform a protocol level random number generation; Progress the Beacon Chain (by adding fresh blocks); Vote on the head of the chain; Finalize checkpoints; Link the transactions of shards.

Thus, it is the Beacon Chain where validators build the backbone of the new Ethereum (ETH).

When Sharding?

Despite the fact that some details of Ethereum (ETH) 2.0 are still subject to changes, it is clear that the final sharding design will be delivered during the Phase 1:

Shards and crosslinks are not currently contained within the Phase 0 beacon chain. They are the major Phase 1 milestone.

Also, some forms of penalties and even slashing (excluding from the operations in Ethereum (ETH) 2.0 network) are envisaged for malicious validators. Every validator who fails to attest some blocks or participate in voting will lose his/her staker rewards partially.

It may cost 32 ETH to join Ethereum (ETH) 2.0 as a validator. Will it worth it? Share your opinion with us in the Comments section below!