What consensus algorithm will Ethereum 20 adopt
blockchain includes public blockchain, joint (instry) blockchain and private blockchain. Public chain point-to-point e-cash system: bitcoin, smart contract and decentralized application platform: Ethereum
blockchain is a new application mode of distributed data storage, point-to-point transmission, consensus mechanism, encryption algorithm and other computer technologies
blockchain is an important concept of bitcoin. In essence, it is a decentralized database. At the same time, as the underlying technology of bitcoin, it is a series of data blocks generated by using cryptographic methods. Each data block contains a batch of bitcoin network transaction information, Used to verify the validity of its information (anti-counterfeiting) and generate the next block
extended data
according to the different degree of blockchain network centralization, three kinds of blockchains under different application scenarios are differentiated:
1. The blockchain with the whole network open and without user authorization mechanism is called public chain
2. The authorized nodes are allowed to join the network, and the information can be viewed according to the authority. It is often used in the inter agency blockchain, which is called alliance chain or instry chain
3. All the nodes in the network are in the hands of one organization, which is called private chain
alliance chain and private chain are also called licensing chain, and public chain is called non licensing chain
blockchain features
1, decentralization. Blockchain technology does not rely on additional third-party management institutions or hardware facilities, and there is no central control. In addition to the self-contained blockchain itself, each node realizes information self verification, transmission and management through distributed accounting and storage. Decentralization is the most prominent and essential feature of blockchain
2. Openness. Blockchain technology is based on open source. In addition to the private information of all parties involved in the transaction is encrypted, the data of blockchain is open to everyone. Anyone can query blockchain data and develop related applications through the open interface, so the information of the whole system is highly transparent
3. Independence. Based on consensus specifications and Protocols (similar to various mathematical algorithms such as hash algorithm used by bitcoin), the whole blockchain system does not rely on other third parties, and all nodes can automatically and safely verify and exchange data in the system without any human intervention
4. Safety. As long as 51% of all data nodes cannot be controlled, the network data cannot be arbitrarily manipulated and modified, which makes the blockchain itself relatively safe and avoids subjective and artificial data changes
5. Anonymity. Unless there are legal requirements, technically speaking, the identity information of each block node does not need to be disclosed or verified, and the information can be transferred anonymously
Blockchain 1.0 era usually refers to the development stage of blockchain application represented by bitcoin from 2009 to 2014. They are mainly committed to solving the problem of decentralization of currency and means of payment; After 2014, developers pay more and more attention to solve the technical and scalability problems of bitcoin. At the end of 2013, vitalik buterin released Ethereum white paper "Ethereum: next generation smart contract and decentralized application platform", which introced smart contract into blockchain and opened the application of blockchain outside the currency field, thus opening the era of blockchain 2.0< The so-called smart contract is actually a kind of computer contract that can be automatically executed based on prescribed trigger rules. It can also be regarded as a digital version of traditional contract. It was proposed by interdisciplinary legal scholar and cryptography researcher Nick Szabo more than 20 years ago. This technology was once not used in the actual instry because of the lack of programmable digital system and related technologies, until the emergence of blockchain technology and Ethereum provided a trusted execution environment for it
compared with bitcoin, Ethereum is a complete scripting language of Turing, which supports developers to create and publish arbitrary decentralized applications on the platform. Since its birth, there have been more than 200 decentralized applications based on Ethereum in the world
the chief researcher of bitwindow blockchain said: in the era of blockchain 2.0 represented by Ethereum, blockchain technology has graally expanded from the field of currency and payment to the field of finance. With the development of technology and the wider application of blockchain, the era of blockchain 3.0 beyond the monetary and financial fields will be around the corner. This article is excerpted from bitwindow. China's professional blockchain and digital currency instry analyzes the media, and adheres to a neutral, objective and dialectical attitude to understand and interpret the latest trends of blockchain and digital currency
after Ethereum is upgraded to version 2.0 POS mechanism, miners may switch mining machines to other networks
as Ethereum is finally ready to start its Ethereum 2.0 upgrade later this year, thus eliminating the long-term delay, the network will start to move towards the proof of rights model
therefore, the network will give up the workload proof consensus algorithm, so that eth miners have little choice. As their equipment will become obsolete, they will be forced to start mining counterfeit coins or re qualify as eth mortgagors. So, what is the current situation of Ethereum mining? With the coming transition, what will happen to the whole instry< At present, Ethereum consensus is based on POW system, which is similar to bitcoin (BTC). As a result, Ethereum's mining process is almost the same, as miners use their computing resources to earn rewards for each block they try to complete< However, there are still major differences between these processes. Although bitcoin mining has relied almost entirely on ASIC (large, loud machines designed specifically for cryptocurrency mining, most of which are concentrated in areas with low electricity prices), Ethereum's pow hash algorithm ethash is designed to support global chip manufacturers (such as NVIDIA and AMD). As Thomas Heller, global business director of cryptocurrency mining pool f2pool, explained in a conversation with cointegraph, GPU is much cheaper and easier to access than ASIC
"as ASIC is a very professional machine, when a new generation of procts is released, it is usually a huge technological leap. As a result, they have a much higher hash rate and are more energy efficient than the previous generation. This means that those manufacturers have spent a lot of money to research and develop it. Their machines are usually very expensive, and GPUs are much cheaper. "
Heller added that those who use GPU miners "have more flexibility to mine." For example, the popular NVIDIA geforce GTX 1080 Ti card can mine more than 15 different currencies, while ASIC units usually support only one currency
nevertheless, Ethereum is not completely immune to ASIC miners - at least in its current state. In April 2018, bitcontinent released antminer E3, an ASIC specially proced for mining Ethereum. Although widely praised for its hash rate of 180 megahashes per second and power consumption of 800 watts, it has received different responses from the Ethereum community. After the ASIC is inserted, a considerable number of GPU rig owners seem to suffer from loss of profits, and some are even forced to switch to other networks
"in the white paper, ETH must have ASIC resistance. I would like to say that the white paper stands for something "is one of the highest comments on the AR / ethermining topic about the topic discussed when antminer E3 was announced. Another reddit user argued that "the $800 only applies to 180mh."“ Split or die of a nation. "
some Ethereum users continue to suggest that bitmain's mining devices can lead to greater concentration, thus increasing the possibility of attack by 51%. Soon, a group of developers put forward "programmed workload proof" or progpow, which is an extension of the current Ethereum algorithm ethash, aiming to make GPU more competitive and promote decentralization
according to a paper published in March by Kristy Leigh Minehan, co-founder of progpow, about 40% of the hash rate of Ethereum is generated by bitmain ASIC. Alejandro de la Torre, the vice president of poolin, is the sixth largest pool of eth. He confirmed to cointegration that "GPU mining is still dominant" in Ethereum network, and added:
"at present, the profit of eth mining is not high, and the management threshold and cost of GPU equipment are higher than ASIC equipment. Compared with ASIC devices, GPU devices are more flexible, and you can use other algorithms to switch to other coins. "
progpow has not been integrated into Ethereum, and it is not clear when it will be finally implemented - in March, Ethereum core developers were debating whether progpow will really benefit the network in nearly two hours, and failed to reach a consensus. It is worth noting that a bitmain representative has previously told cointegraph that the mining hardware giant does not intend to extend the service life of antminer E3 to start operation after October 2020: "as far as we know, mining will end in October or some time after that."
a safe but uncertain future
indeed, Ethereum will stay away from mining in the future. Ethereum 2.0, which is planned to be launched later in 2020, is a major network upgrade on the blockchain, aiming to transfer its current POW consensus algorithm to a virtual POS (known as "block verifier")
more specifically, users are randomly selected considering their wealth in the network or their "interests". In other words, the more coins a POS verifier chooses to put in, the more coins accumulated as a reward
according to vitalik buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, e to the transition, the network will be more secure and the attack cost will be higher than the network of bitcoin, although the debate about the better consensus algorithm in the encryption community has lasted for many years. However, it is not clear when to start Ethereum 2.0, as many errors and management issues are reported to be delaying the process
another hypothetical benefit of POS system is that it has higher energy efficiency than pow blockchain. According to digiconomist, the cryptocurrency's total annual footprint is 59.31 terawatts per hour, which is comparable to the electricity consumption of Greece as a whole. However, since a report in July 2019 estimated that 74% of the exploitation of bitcoin was done using renewable energy, the environmental impact of bitcoin does not seem to be so serious
what will happen to the actual Ethereum miner? According to the documentation of Casper upgrade as part of Ethereum 2.0 roadmap, the network will initially support a hybrid model including both POW and POS, thus providing some space for block verifiers and GPU / ASIC miners. Jack O & 39, CEO of skale network; "There will definitely be a transition period when two networks are running at the same time," Holleran told cointegration The CEO of scale network (based on Ethereum's blockchain platform) gave a detailed description of this process:
"the transition from eth1 to eth2 takes time of course - it may be years rather than months. The good news about this slow transition is that dapps and defi platforms will be able to roam around based on survivability, security and real-world evidence of adoption. This is a positive impact on the Ethereum ecosystem. "
dig or not
once Ethereum is fully in the POS orbit, miners will have two options. One is to sell the equipment and use the money to accumulate more Eth and start mortgage. The other is the choice for GPU miners, which is simply switching to other ethash networks and mining counterfeit money. Nick foster, a representative of kabombacks, a US mining equipment dealer, told cointegration that most eth miners would choose the latter:
"what I want to say is that most of the miners have not really entered Ethereum or the mining of specific tokens. Yes, there is a certain amount of mineral deposits and holds, but I oppose the view that a large number of Shanzhai coin miners hold their coins at any time. "<
foster then described how he used 3gb GPU units to mine ethash's point-to-point blockchain asset ravencoin (RVN). Once it was unable to mine eth, he said, "this is the reason for mining crows. I immediately sold stability to BTC, and then sold it to US dollars to pay for my rights. I would say that a lot of people are adopting this strategy. "
as foster concludes, he wants eth miners to jump out of the network, and new players - those who don't invest in power infrastructure or drilling rigs - will take a stake in eth. He described the following:
"I can't imagine if I found a five-year lease with $0.04 of electricity and I was mining eth, I decided to sell everything and then continue to pay the rent so that I could hold eth as a share. Substitute. "
Marc fresa, founder of asic.to, a mining firmware company, agreed in a conversation with cointegraph: "if you invest in mining, you won't bet because you have enough room to grow."
one of the main counterfeit coins that may benefit from POW miners leaving Ethereum is Ethereum classic (etc), which is a more conservative version of the blockchain. It is reported that there is no POS related plan. As it also runs on the ethash algorithm, the startup of Ethereum 2.0 may lead to the migration of miners, so its hash rate may have a significant peak
eth's larger pools have similar options. When asked about the company's plans for Ethereum after pow, Heller told cointegraph that after the announcement of Ethereum's POS upgrade, f2pool launched a sister company called story.fish in early 2018. Story.fish has started to provide mortgage services for other POS and delegated POS projects, such as tezos (xtz), Cosmos (atom) and Cardano (ADA), e to numerous handover delays. For prin, e to the transition to POS, it "may temporarily give up supporting eth mining," de la Torre told cointegraph
other top eth pools, namely nanopool, ethermine, pool center, sparkpool and spiderpool, did not respond to requests for comment from cointegraph.
pos: POS is a consensus algorithm in the public chain, which can be used as a replacement of pow algorithm. POW is a mechanism to ensure the security of bitcoin, Ethereum and many other blockchains, but POW algorithm is criticized for destroying the environment and wasting power in the process of mining. POS tries to solve these problems by replacing the concept of mining with a different mechanism
POS mechanism can be described as a kind of virtual mining. POS mainly relies on the token in the blockchain itself. In pow, a user may buy a computer for 1000 dollars, join the network to mine and proce new blocks, and get a reward. In POS, users can buy tokens of equal value with us $1000 and put them into the POS mechanism as deposit, so that users have the opportunity to generate new blocks and get rewards. In pow, if users spend $2000 on hardware equipment, they will of course get twice the computing power to mine, thus getting twice the reward. Similarly, if you invest twice as much token as the deposit in the POS mechanism, you have twice as much chance to get the right to generate new blocks.
at present, Ethereum and EOS are the most popular public chains. However, the market value of EOS has plummeted after its epic loophole recently, which has been downplayed by many media. Often the most promising at the beginning may not win in the end. Recently, because of their innovative consensus algorithm, they proposed quite innovative CPOs and focused on a new public chain project
their name is gaiaworld public chain, and their CPOs consensus algorithm is their core technology. Specific technical details can go to the official website to see the white paper, in short, TPS speed has reached a new height, faster than Ethereum, and can support the layout of large projects< br />
at the same time, they have innovated two other technologies. Parallel chain technology can make it easier for other developers to release side chains, and then aegis protocol, which is a specific smart contract protocol&# 160;< br />
now there are so many air projects, it's really hard to distinguish the good from the bad, but I think the technology platform is the future
hope to adopt