By Tobi Loba
Over the past few months, there has been recorded progress to the long-awaited upgrade to Ethereum network. Recently, the launch date of the ETH 2.0 final public testnet was announced, which indicates that the eventual launch of the upgraded network is around the corner.
Launch Date of Ethereum 2.0 Final Public Testnet
The coordinator of Ethereum 2.0, Danny Ryan, shared the news on the testnet’s discussion board on Discord. According to Ryan, the final public testnet of ETH 2.0 will be launched on 4th August 2020.
Ryan noted:
“After discussions with client teams, the next multi-client testnet (mainnet config including min validator numbers) will have a min genesis time of August 4th.”
According to the lead developer, further details over the development will be announced subsequently.
Phase 0 of Ethereum 2.0, the first stage of the network upgrade is expected to drastically increase transaction speed. And it has been running on various testnets since the genesis block was created for Beacon Chain in April 2020.
In place of the Proof-of-Work (PoW) protocol that involves miners, after an upgrade to Proof of Stake (PoS), the Ethereum network will be secured by users that stake a minimum of 32 ETH to operate a validating node.
Public Testnets Have Been Up and Running
As aforementioned, the previously launched public testnets have been up and running over the past three months. In April, Beacon Chain was launched on the initial testnet named Sapphire using smaller 3.2 ETH deposits. Its success preceded full ETH nodes that were launched in May on the Topaz testnet, where staking rewards were issued.
In June, Onyx went live and was operating progressively with relatively 20,000 validators by the end of the month. Also, the Altona multi-client testnet for Phase 0 was launched in July for stability before the rollout of a public testnet.
The majority of the past tests were conducted by Prysmatic Labs. A couple of days ago, the Prysm Ethereum 2.0 client was audited successfully by blockchain security and auditing firm Quantstamp.