So it's confirmed - A group of developers are working behind the scenes with Ethereum miners to hard fork the Ethereum blockchain after next week’s merge. This means there will still be a version of the network running on the current Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism while the 'official' Ethereum 2.0 blockchain transitions to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).

With that comes a separate and completely independent Ethereum token, currently being called 'ETHPoW' but the coin's official name is still undecided. 

All Ethereum holders will receive ETHPoW automatically, an amount equal to the regular Ethereum you hold...

Major exchanges Binance, MEXC Global, Gate.io, and FTX have already agreed to list and support trading of the forked token. Poloniex is even a step ahead of the rest, and has already listed a placeholder token that will be swapped for the real thing once it's live.

Coinbase and Kraken both say they're open to supporting it, but haven't yet made a full commitment, likely waiting to see if the coin will have any demand or value.

ETHPoW will join the two existing Ethereum tokens - the 'official' Ethereum (ETH) and Etherum Classic (ETC)...

The upcoming 2.0 fork won't be Ethereum's first, the previous fork ended with two coins and two versions of Ethereum - Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. 

To summarize what happened then - in 2016, hackers exploited a security hole in a project called 'The DAO' allowing them to steal about $50 million worth of ETH. A solution was proposed to re-launch Ethereum with the history of the hacked coins completely erased, like it never happened.

How they went about doing this caused a lot of controversy, it was all decided when the proposal was put to a short notice on-chain vote. Only 5.5% of potential voters participated, but since the majority of them voted 'yes', the fork happened.

Those in the Ethereum community who disagreed with the decision simply ignored the change and continued to participate on the original Ethereum network, which became known as Ethereum Classic. 

While Ethereum Classic is considered one of the most successful forked tokens, ETHPoW's Success is far from a 'sure thing'..

When Ethereum Classic started, its support, in large part, came from the controversy that created it.

Some in the community strongly disagreed with the idea of editing the 'true' history of the Ethereum blockchain, and Ethereum Classic kept that intact. Others disagreed with how the decision to fork the coin was made, saying they would support any decision that had over 50% of potential voters backing it, but the fork went ahead without even coming close.  

Ethereum Classic succeeded, and is still active today, because the people behind it truly believed in it.

But when it comes to Ethereum 2.0 - it isn't controversial, it doesn't violate the beliefs of a large portion of the community.  

The only segment of the community united against 2.0 are miners, because once Ethereum has fully moved to the 2.0 Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, miners are no longer needed to verify transactions. Their motivation to continue supporting the old version of Ethereum is entirely profit-based. These are the same miners who loved it when we couldn't send $1 on the Ethereum blockchain without paying a $75 fee.

That just doesn't sound like the beginning of a token that will have long term success.

Take a look at the two most successful forks in crypto's history - Ethereum Classic and Bitcoin Cash. All others have faded away, while these two remain in the top 50 because they're backed by a community of supporters who believe their existence is important. You can find their supporters making passionate arguments on where they think the 'official' version of the coin went wrong, and why these alternatives make things right.

This is why dumping ETHPoW as soon as possible may end up being the smartest move... 

There already is an Ethereum alternative for anyone who doesn't want to support the 'official' version - Ethereum Classic. It's already accomplished the hardest part - establishing itself among the small list of coins traders can trust to retain value, and can be found on every major exchange. 

There just isn't a good reason for another alternative - maybe the Ethereum brand is big enough where it finds support even if it isn't necessary. But even forks of Bitcoin that every Bitcoin holder received for free met a quick death, because people didn't believe they needed to survive. 

How to make sure you'll be able to access your ETHPoW as soon as it becomes available...

Typically the day forked coins go live, is the day they have the highest value, so if you're aiming to be among the first to trade yours, you'll want to transfer any Ethereum you own off of any exchanges and on to a wallet like Metamask, where you hold the private keys.  

Once it launches, you'll be credited an equal 1:1 amount of ETHPoW for any Ethereum you own, and will be able to access it in the same wallet that holds your regular Ethereum. You'll need to switch networks (blockchains) and we'll make sure to post the settings you'll need as soon as that becomes known. 

If your Ethereum is on an exchange they will need to take several additional steps to distribute each users portion, this is because they store multiple users coins together. In the past, some exchange users waited weeks or even months longer than those holding crypto in their own private wallets. 

Do you think ETHPoW has long term potential, or think odds are against it? Tweet us your thoughts @TheCryptoPress


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Author: Ross Davis
Silicon Valley Newsroom
GCP | Breaking Crypto News

Ethereum 2.0 continues to strengthen its foundations before the Ethereum mainnet merges with this new version. In the coming days, it could reach the milestone of 400,000 validators who will verify transactions and ensure the proper functioning of the blockchain. 

At the time of publishing this article, there are over 395,465 validators who met the required deposit of ETH in the smart contract of the Beacon Chain, the "beacon chain" is the first fragment of the new 2.0 network. At current rate of growth, we should see 400,000 validators reached sometime this week. 

These early validators are both larger investors running independent nodes and staking pools with many contributors.  Together they have locked up over $12 Million worth of Ethereum, unable to withdraw it until the final merge of the old chain with 2.0.

Ethereum 2.0's Launch is Right Around The Corner... AGAIN.

We've documented Ethereum founder Vitalik giving speeches on Ethereum 2.0 as far back as 2017.

Then in 2019 we were told it could launch as soon as early 2020.

Everything made sense at this point, knowing that planning began in 2017, even 2020 seems like a long time, but we understood - this blockchain would move trillions of dollars in value in it's future, making sure it's free of errors and secure is extremely important.

So - 2 full years to implement everything, sounds reasonable enough. Remember, the biggest change is moving to a proof of stake algorithm, replacing the proof of work miners with a more efficient system, one that already exists and other blockchains are doing.  They aren't inventing this, they're implementing it.

2020 begins with a short delay but we were told with '95% Confidence' it was still coming in 2020.  After a couple months Vitalik was asked for an update, 'still on track' he said.

Obviously, that didn't happen.

At the time, crypto was exploding in popularity and the high demand made transaction fees skyrocket.

In other words, leaving leaving things as they were became INSANELY profitable...

Let's look back to the day in 2019 when they said Ethereum 2.0 would come in 2020 - all transaction fees for the entire day totaled $119,106. 

Now let's look at June 2020, the month we were told the release would happen is also a month transaction fees hit new all-time highs, in just ONE DAY people spent over $14 million in fees.

While we don't know how involved in mining the Ethereum developers/founders are, it's very likely that if you created a token that relied on miners, you're going to run some mining rigs, at least to help get it off the ground.  Then as your blockchain's popularity grew, wouldn't you increase the mining power you contribute? If you were part of launching it, participating in running it just makes sense.

It isn't speculation to say that upgrading at that point would have put an end to the massive daily jackpot Ethereum miners were enjoying. 

As the date given for Ethereum 2.0's Launch Approaches, Transaction Fee Costs Explode...

Even if you don't find the timing of all this as suspicious as I do, the point is - the upgrade to 2.0 never happened. 

So will it happen this time?

With so many other blockchains taking people away from Ethereum, fees have finally come down again.  Because so many alternatives now exist, and traders have shown they have a limit to how long they're willing to accept ridiculously high fees - it looks like there's more incentive for Ethereum to upgrade than not.

At the rate Ethereum is losing users to alternatives, there's more profit in launching 2.0 in order to bring people back.

While over the past years more projects chose to launch on other blockchains than ever before, many still also chose Ethereum.  However, talk to those project's leaders and virtually all of them share that their choice was made not because they're satisficed with the current state of Ethereum, but because they're counting on Ethereum 2.0 to resolve the high trading fees, which they all acknowledge has cost them users.

In conclusion...

For these reasons - I believe 2022 is the year they finally deliver, Ethereum 2.0 is coming - and this is the first time that statement is true.  
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Author: Justin Derbek
New York News Desk
Breaking Crypto News

Get $40 Bitcoin for $20 NOW: Click here!

 

Speaking at the Permissionless 2022 Conference this week in Florida, Ethereum Foundation Sharding researcher Justin Drake said:

“It won't be June, but likely in the few months after. No firm date yet, but we're definitely in the final chapter of PoW on Ethereum.”

He than elaborated, saying...

“As far as we know, if everything goes to plan, August—it just makes sense. If we don't have to move, let's do it as soon as we can.””

Finally, giving his reasoning behind the date...

“Strong desire to make this happen before difficulty bomb in August. Stars are aligned.”

What is a difficulty bomb? 

The big deal about Ethereum 2.0 is the change to Proof Of Stake mining, the essentials you need to know are: this no longer requires the use of power-hungry mining rigs used in the current 'Proof Of Work' mining.  

The current type of mining is considered bad for the environment, because miners have computer processors working at maximum levels to solve mathematical puzzles, included in this process is encrypting and processing transactions, and creating newly minted coins which are given to miners as a their reward.

The difficulty bomb was created by Ethereum developers in 2016 with the merge to 2.0 in mind.  Once it begins, the bomb will exponentially increase the difficulty level of the puzzles required for proof of work mining, eventually making that mining impossible to do. 

The difficulty bomb is intended to stop miners who wish to continue mining the Ethereum 1.0 (Proof of Work) chain once the network has fully moved to Ethereum 2.0 (Proof of Stake).

The old and new method were supposed to overlap for awhile before the difficulty bomb kicks in, but they've lagged so long on Ethereum 2.0's launch that back in 2016 when they scheduled the difficulty bomb, they imagined Ethereum 2.0 would have launched long before now.  

A short history:

Nov 2017 "The Ethereum Killer Is Ethereum 2.0" Nasdaq reported.

June 2019 "Ethereum “ETH 2.0” Genesis Block May Launch in January 2020" Blocknomi reported 

Feb 2020 "95% Confidence': Ethereum Developers Pencil In July 2020 for Eth 2.0 Launch" Coindesk reported. 

May 2020 "Vitalik Buterin Says Much-Delayed Ethereum 2.0 Still on Track for July Launch" Coindesk reported.

From this point onward, there's a never-ending supply of articles saying the launch is near, sometimes based on nothing and sometime fueled by statements from Ethereum developers that imply this is the case. 

So, does this mean we can definitely expect the merge complete and Ethereum 2.0 up and operational by August? 

Nope.  Developers can propose pushing it back, it's happened before. 

While it would be yet another failed milestone, something most developers would find embarrassing, in the case of Ethereum's dev team it's just another entry on the massive list of all the other meaningless deadlines they gave the public. 

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Author: Mark Pippen
London News Desk 
Breaking Crypto News