Ethereum is a protocol present process vital modifications. Shopper groups are upgrading the protocol to scale to meet international demand whereas bettering safety and decentralization. Past protocol growth, a vital shift in Ethereum has been the motion away from ‘Eth1’ and ‘Eth2’ terminology. As of late 2021, core developers stopped using the terminology, preferring ‘execution layer’ and ‘consensus layer’, respectively. Right now, as highlighted in our Q1 roadmap, ethereum.org makes the identical shift.
- Eth1 → execution layer
- Eth2 → consensus layer
- Execution layer + consensus layer = Ethereum
Let’s discover why.
Tl;dr;
- The phrases Eth1 and Eth2 (Ethereum 2.0) are being phased out
- Execution layer (Eth1) and consensus layer (Eth2) are the brand new terminologies
- The roadmap to scale Ethereum in a decentralized means stays the identical
- You don’t want to do something
The place did Ethereum 2.0 come from?
Ethereum all the time had, as a part of its roadmap, plans to scale the community in a decentralized means and to transition to proof-of-stake. Early on, researchers labored on these efforts individually, however round 2018 they had been combined into a single roadmap under the “Ethereum 2.0” umbrella.
As a part of that roadmap, the prevailing proof-of-work chain (Eth1) would finally be deprecated by way of the issue bomb. Customers & functions would migrate to a brand new, proof-of-stake Ethereum chain, often known as Eth2.
The article The Roadmap to Serenity by ConsenSys explains how issues stood as of early 2019.
What modified?
As work started on the Beacon Chain, it grew to become clear that the phased Ethereum 2.0 roadmap would take a number of years to ship absolutely. This led to a revival of analysis initiatives on the proof-of-work chain corresponding to Stateless Ethereum, a paradigm that might take away the untouched state from the community to sure its development fee.
The elevated give attention to making the proof-of-work chain long-term sustainable paired with the belief that the Beacon Chain could be prepared a lot sooner than different elements of the Ethereum 2.0 roadmap led to an “Early Merge” proposal. This proposal would launch the prevailing EVM chain as “Shard 0” of the Ethereum 2.0 system. Not solely would this expedite the transfer to proof-of-stake, however it might additionally make for a a lot smoother transition for functions, because the transfer to proof-of-stake might occur with none migration on their finish.
Shortly after this proposal, Danny Ryan explored how we might accomplish this by leveraging the prevailing Eth1 purchasers in his Eth1+Eth2 client relationship submit. This could massively scale back the event work required to ship a post-merge system and leverage current purchasers, which had been battle-tested for years on Mainnet. Across the identical time, research on rollups as a viable and safe means to scale Ethereum proved promising. As an alternative of ready on a posh, unsure scaling resolution years away, we might shift the main target in direction of scaling by way of rollups as an alternative of sharded execution.
Need to dive deeper? Try Danny Ryan’s “Eth1 + Eth2 = Ethereum” ETHGlobal presentation.
Why can’t we simply use Eth2?
Psychological fashions
One main drawback with the Eth2 branding is that it creates a damaged psychological mannequin for brand spanking new customers of Ethereum. They intuitively suppose that Eth1 comes first and Eth2 comes after. Or that Eth1 ceases to exist as soon as Eth2 exists. Neither of those is true. By eradicating Eth2 terminology, we save all future customers from navigating this complicated psychological mannequin.
Inclusivity
Because the roadmap for Ethereum has developed, Ethereum 2.0 has turn out to be an inaccurate illustration of Ethereum’s roadmap. Being cautious and correct in our phrase alternative permits content material on Ethereum to be understood by the broadest viewers potential.
Rip-off prevention
Sadly, malicious actors have tried to use the Eth2 misnomer to rip-off customers by telling them to swap their ETH for ‘ETH2’ tokens or that they need to someway migrate their ETH earlier than the Eth2 improve.
We hope this up to date terminology will carry readability to get rid of this rip-off vector and assist make the ecosystem safer.
Staking readability
Some staking operators have additionally represented ETH staked on the Beacon Chain with the ‘ETH2’ ticker. This creates potential confusion, on condition that customers of those companies aren’t truly receiving an ‘ETH2’ token. No ‘ETH2’ token exists; it merely represents their share in that particular suppliers’ stake.
How does this replace change the Ethereum roadmap?
It doesn’t! It’s essential to perceive that this renaming represents a change in naming solely. The options on Ethereum’s present roadmap (i.e. the merge, sharding) and future options will nonetheless occur on the identical timeline. More on the Ethereum upgrades.
Content material modifications
ethereum.org
- Our ‘Eth2’ sources (ethereum.org/en/eth2) at the moment are our ‘Ethereum upgrades’ part
- Particular person options at the moment are referred to as ‘upgrades’
- All pages beforehand discussing Eth2 have been up to date, with explanations included the place acceptable
The rebrand was a large activity with many content material modifications. There are probably cases we missed and enhancements nonetheless to be made. Discover one thing that wants fixing? Raise an issue or open a PR on the ethereum.org GitHub.
Staking Launchpad
Replace February 1, 2022
As a part of the great renaming, we have additionally up to date the Ethereum Staking Launchpad (previously often known as the Eth2 Launchpad) to replicate the terminology modifications. Please raise an issue or create a PR if we missed anything.
Content material translations
In the event you’re able to translating content material, we might use your assist! We’ve up to date this content material in English, however our 40+ extra languages at the moment are outdated and nonetheless reference Eth2 terminology. Please take into account getting concerned.
We’ve up to date our content buckets to embody an Ethereum upgrades bucket. It will empower our a whole lot of energetic contributors to the Translation Program to instantly goal these modifications to publish the brand new correct data throughout languages extra shortly.
Fascinated by serving to to translate ethereum.org or the Ethereum Staking Launchpad? Try our translation program.
A remaining observe
To many, ethereum.org is seen as a reputable supply of data maintained by our group. Understandably, many didn’t need to shift away from Eth2 terminology till ethereum.org did. We hope that our modifications will encourage others to transfer away from the outdated Eth2 terminology. By doing so, you’ll be serving to to create consistency and readability throughout the ecosystem, permitting for extra correct psychological fashions and making Ethereum extra accessible.
Particular thanks to Tim Beiko and Trent Van Epps whose writings had been closely referenced on this article.
