The long-awaited upgrade of the Ethereum 2.0 network has taken a further step towards launch with a preliminary date announced for the final public test network.
Platform launch coordinator Danny Ryan (@djrtwo) shared the news on the test network discussion forum on Discord.
„After discussions with customer teams, the next multi-client test network (main network configuration including validator minimum numbers) will have a minimum gestation time of August 4th.
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More details will be released in a couple of days, added the Ethereum developer.
Phase 0 of ETH 2.0 has been running on several test networks since the genesis block was created by Beacon Chain in April. Phase 0 is the first stage of the long-awaited upgrade to Proof-of-Stake and will dramatically increase the speed of transactions.
Instead of the current Proof-of-Stake system involving miners, ETH 2.0 will be secured by users by putting a minimum of 32 Bitcoin Champion in staking to execute a validation node.
Ethereum update indicates that version 2.0 is on its way
Three months of successful testing
Beacon Chain was launched on the initial test network, called Sapphire, in April using small 3.2 ETH tanks. After its success, the 32 ETH nodes were activated in May on the Topaz test network and staking rewards were issued.
The Onyx test network started in June and was running steadily with about 20,000 validators by the end of the month. Finally Altona, the multi-client test network coordinated for Phase 0, went live in early July to ensure stability before a public test network could be deployed.
Prysmatic Labs has performed most of the above tests. The client Prysm ETH 2.0 was successfully audited last week by security and audit company Quantstamp. A Prysmatic blog post made over the weekend confirmed that its developers are „very close“ to launching a final public multi-client test network.
The latest Eth 2.0 test network set for launch
The network under pressure
Ethereum has recently faced increased pressure from rising stablecoins and the rise of DeFi. Gas usage and network tariffs have skyrocketed to record levels leaving the platform open to criticism from its detractors.
Meanwhile, Layer 2 escalation solutions could alleviate these bottlenecks and bring gas tariffs back down to sustainable levels. But in the long term there is a lot at stake in Ethereum 2.0.