Ad
News
Top developer doubles down, says Ethereum 2.0 will launch in 2020 Top developer doubles down, says Ethereum 2.0 will launch in 2020
🚨 This article is 4 years old...

Top developer doubles down, says Ethereum 2.0 will launch in 2020

Top developer doubles down, says Ethereum 2.0 will launch in 2020

Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.

Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake caused quite the stir earlier this month when he said that for Ethereum 2.0 (a.k.a. ETH 2) to launch properly, developers would need until at least Jan. 2021. This comment was controversial because, for months, investors and other stakeholders in the cryptocurrency industry were certain the launch would take place in July or August of this year.

That’s not to say that Drake was promoting “FUD.” The reason why he suggested the launch should be in Q1 2021 at the earliest is that he had concerns about the security of Ethereum if the upgrade was rushed.

“Before [launch] I want to see:  a public testnet with 3+ clients running smoothly for 2-3 months, an incentivised “attack net” running for 2-3 months (teased here—more details soon), a bug bounty program similar to bounty.ethereum.org running for 2-3 months… All the above cannot happen in Q3 2020.”

Regardless, many prominent members of the Ethereum community remain certain that Q3 or Q4 2020 is the time for ETH 2 to be rolled out.

A top developer asserts Ethereum 2.0 will go live in 2020

Despite what some reports may lead you to believe, Afri Schoedon is still an active member of the Ethereum community. At current, he is working on ETH2 multi-client testnets that are essentially needed to allow for the upgrade to go live.

In a recent interview with Paradigm, as one of the developers leading the charge on the upgrade, Schoedon said that he thinks a 2020 launch date for the upgrade is still feasible:

“The Ethereum 2.0 beacon chain will launch in November unless we find severe bugs in clients or protocol. I’m in-between Vitalk and Justin with my estimation here, I don’t think that we necessarily need to delay Ethereum 2.0 into 2021 unless we find critical issues. We are well on track for a late 2020 launch.”

Schoedon added that with the  “official multi-client testnet Medalla” launching “very soon,” the final building blocks are being set in place to properly activate ETH2 this year.

As hinted at earlier, he is the latest of many prominent Ethereum stakeholders to have asserted that a 2020 launch is possible and likely.

The blockchain’s first founder, Vitalik Buterin said in response to Drake’s original comment that he would “favor launching phase 0 significantly before that date regardless of level of readiness.”

He disagreed with Drake’s sentiment that extreme security and caution is needed as “eth2 is not going to have any critical applications depending on it until phase 1, so the practical risks of breakage are lower.”

Hudson Jameson, Preston Valoon, and Anthony Sassano are among some of the blockchain’s other proponents that have touted the 2020 launch date.

A bull market catalyst

With the launch of Ethereum 2.0 drawing near, discussions have once again cropped up about its importance to the price of ETH.

Ryan Sean Adams, the founder of Mythos Capital, said on Jul. 22 that Proof of Stake, which will be enabled through ETH2, “plus DeFi is going to put far more demand on ETH than ICOs ever did.” He added that it is hilarious ETH is trading at the current (as of the time of his tweet) price of $243.

This comes in reference to the sentiment that once staking is implemented, demand for the cryptocurrency will explode as supply shrinks, pushing prices higher. 

Mentioned in this article