4 news of the next Ethereum update: Shanghai


Advertising

After the last Ethereum update, the Merge, was completed, the network developers met again. This time, the focus of the discussion was Shanghai, as the next update is called. Among the novelties that are expected is the enabling of ether (ETH) withdrawals from validating nodes and sharding (segmentation).

The most recent AllCoreDevWhat are these types of meetings called? which brings together the main Ethereum programmers, took place on October 27 through a videoconference.

For now, the first instances that this update would occupy, towards the final arrival of Ethereum 2.0, are being discussed. The Merge was just one of the many stages to be fulfilled. The next stage to fulfill would be «The Surge» (or the surge).

As discussed at the meeting, there is still is debating how the final execution will be. For now, the idea of ​​segmenting the update into two small updates seems to win. This is to avoid overloading the network.

Shanghai is planned for mid-2023while details are polished before your arrival.

Withdrawals from the network

One of the central points, and which is on the discussion table in the different forums as reported by CriptoNoticias, are the withdrawals of the validators.

Since the activation of the Beacon Chain in December 2020, users could register as validator nodes and earn returns for their staking that ranged between 5% and 10%. However, the condition of this was that the funds would be held until the Surge was activated In the net.

Now, with the Merge complete, the developers are already running the options, to accomplish this. It’s about the EIP-4895which would enable withdrawals. Also discussed was the EIP-3651 that allows to create a transaction when a validator creates a block, to receive the reward.

Sharding and Proto-Danksharding

Sharding is one of the improvements that will be activated on the network. Its implementation basically will segment the network into 64 shards (shards) and each will serve as sidechains, which will have their own set of validators. This will allow the transaction load to be distributed on the network, avoiding saturation.

Sharding has received an update known as Proto-danksharding. It is the one that will finally be included in Ethereum. The update corresponds to EIP-4844. However, at the meeting, the developers of the Ethereum clients, Besu and Nethermind, they expressed concern.

Concerns are based on the short development time, taking into account that Proto-danksharding is still subject to change. It could be a time of “tension and uncertainty”, explained Lukasz Rozmej of Nethemind.

Ansgar Dietrichs, from the Ethereum Foundation, countered that there are only small changes left to have Proto-danksharding ready, so it would not mean any problem or considerable change in the algorithm.

EVM Update

The EVM or Ethereum Virtual Machine for its acronym in English, is in charge of executing all the algorithms of the smart contracts of the network. It works as a kind of supercomputer that works on a network of cryptocurrencies.

In the new Shanghai update, according to the first plans, partial activation of EVM Object Format (EOF) which offers improvements in the execution times of smart contracts, as well as the reduction in commission costs.

Originally EOF requires several structural changes, but in Shanghai only the EIP-3540 and EIP-3670, which are just a part of what the final EOF update would mean.

At the meeting, developer Marius van de Wijden raised concerns about a partial activation of the EOF, rather than a full activation. Another group of developers, such as Tomasz Stanczak and Andrew Ashikhmin, commented that there should be no rush in activating Shanghaiand that, if a full activation is not proceeded with, EOF can wait.

How Shanghai will activate

Traditionally, upgrades or forks in cryptocurrency networks, including Ethereum, are done by setting a block height on the blockchain. However, in the case of the Merge, will be done through a threshold defined by the maximum difficulty reached.

At the meeting, developers discussed how to fix activation. It was suggested that it would be done by setting the height of an epoch made up of 32 blocks.

It is worth noting that Shanghai will be the first update to use this methodology within Ethereum. Because of this, developer Tim Beiko called for further experimentation on testnets before running this on the mainnet.

reference: www.criptonoticias.com


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *