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Ethereum 2.0 may be delayed again due to errors, problems and competitors

The launch of Ethereum 2.0 may be delayed again, according to the Cointelegraph . During a recent meeting, developers planned an update with the Proof-of-Stake algorithm for June, although they noted that this statement was made with cautious optimism. Most of the work has already been successfully completed, but it takes time to fix many errors in the code.

Why does Ethereum take so long to complete the final update phase before it becomes truly scalable? Why are the presence of errors and related problems not the only difficulties that Vitalik Buterin's project faces? While developers are trying to fix errors, other projects are launching staking, which means that Ethereum 2.0 can finally lose the race for scalability.

The fight for clean code


Errors in the code are the main, but not the only factor contributing to the regular postponement of the Ethereum 2.0 launch date. Indeed, the phase of finding and fixing vulnerabilities in the code is a laborious and lengthy process for any project, which can always take longer than originally planned. Thus, for Ethereum, procedures such as security audits, testing, detection and correction of errors can drag on for months.

The Ethereum blockchain is organized quite complicatedly - it is a decentralized structure consisting of several development teams, some of which are independent organizations. Each team has its own tasks - sharding, auditing, Ethereum 2.0, etc. On the one hand, this allows you to simultaneously solve various problems, but, on the other hand, this leads to complications in the planned development of the entire Ethereum platform.

Seven teams are involved in the development of Ethereum 2.0, and most of them are working on optimizing the Schlesi test network , which is the first multi-user Ethereum 2.0 test network to simulate the underlying environment. itEthereum Foundation Trinity, Prysm Labs Prysmatic, Sigma Prime Lighthouse, Status Nimbus, Lodestar ChainSafe, Teku PegaSys and Cortex Nethermind . It is these development teams that are responsible for storing data on the blockchain and checking the blocks. It is very important that they are fully synchronized with each other.

The parallel operation of several teams is critical to maintaining a high level of network security, and no one is going to lose sight of anything. Even if it means breaking promises and once again delaying the launch. In an effort to speed up polishing the code anyway, the bug trapping program has been working for some time and offers bug hunters from $ 1,000 to $ 20,000 for critical errors.

Complex structure and management problems


In addition to bugs and testing, there are management issues that push the launch date even further. At first glance, the Ethereum blockchain may seem like a whole, but in fact it is managed by several teams of developers and administrators, as mentioned above. Some of them are part of independent organizations, and getting all these teams to work synchronously and in a timely manner can be a daunting task. On the one hand, this development approach allows you to effectively distribute tasks, but on the other hand, it complicates the systematic development. Therefore, the lack of proper management and synchronization between teams can easily contribute to regular delays.

The more people involved in the development, the greater the requirements for the level of organization of the whole process as a whole. Earlier, Lane Rettig, one of the developers, noted the need for social scalability, adding that “ the coordination problem is getting complicated .” The distributed structure leads to staff turnover, which further slows down the development process due to the need for long-term adaptation of new employees.

Race competitors


While Ethereum developers are fixing bugs, the prize for the first Proof-of-Stake consensus reached can be won by their competitors. There are several major projects nearing the finish line: EOS, Harmony (ONE), Zilliqa (ZIL), Tezos (XTZ), Cosmos (ATOM), Algorand (ALGO) and Qtum (QTUM) - all with viable and working products either on the net PoS, or delegated PoS.

Successfully working networks launched by these projects demonstrate that what takes years for Ethereum can take them only one year. For example, the Harmony projectfrom Silicon Valley recently launched staking, becoming the first PoS blockchain to manage sharding and proof of ownership at the same time. It is noteworthy that none of these technologies has yet been implemented by Ethereum developers on the main network.

On May 19, the Harmony team announced that they had updated their network, which currently supports hundreds of nodes in numerous shards. The developers claim that they managed to get ahead of Ethereum not only in terms of sharding and staking, but also in terms of network performance, reaching a transaction processing fee of $ 0,000.001 in Mainnet and 118,000 transactions per second (TPS) in Testnet.

However, Ethereum remains a pioneer and major contributor to Proof-of-stakes technology. Given the hundreds of thousands of transactions made on the network every day, delaying the launch of such an important update as Ethereum 2.0 can be completely justified and aimed at making the use of the Ethereum blockchain more secure and efficient.

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