As soon as the Ethereum network was launched, the developers immediately got a list of network flaws and a plan was formed to eliminate them. Problems were especially acute after smart contracts and DApps became popular.
We all remember the launch of the game CryptoKitties in 2017. The application quickly gained popularity, and the high load caused "brakes" in the network. So developers in reality faced one of the shortcomings of the Ethereum network - the problem of scalability. This problem has not gone away. Today, similar CryptoKitties, but not so popular DApp’s, are used by more than 1.3 million users. And the total number of such applications exceeded 2200. And this is just one of the drawbacks of the network.
Stages update Ethereum
The developers have planned four main stages of the network update: Frontier, Homestead, Metropolis, Serenity. Today we are at the stage of Metropolis, which includes the recently implemented update of Constantinople, which has already significantly reduced the time for confirmation of blocks.
When the Metropolis phase is completed, non-technical users will be able to see the full-featured user interface with the DApp’s store and a number of “powerful” projects that demonstrate all the features of Ethereum.
Completion of the last, fourth stage - Serenity, will talk about solving almost all the problems faced by public blockchains. Yes, it is this network state that can be called “Ethereum 2.0”.
What are the disadvantages of Ethereum developers are struggling
All network flaws are related to security and scalability. We have already mentioned the scalability problem at the beginning of the article. Developers need to take care of the ability of the network to quickly digest the entire growing amount of information.
The second equally important issue is the PoW protocol. The idea of PoW was originally (even at the time of Bitcoin creation) quite reliable and safe. Here are just an increase in the hashrate network of the ether began to cause real fears in the form of an attack of 51%. If prior to this, an attack of 51% seemed to be unreal, due to the need to ensure large capacities and large costs, now this threat has hung over some projects and has already hit them. 51% of Vertcoin and Ethereum Classic projects have come up against the attack.
The solution to the problem is the transition to the PoS protocol. The transition will take place in several stages so as not to disturb the stability of the network. This update of the Ethereum network was called "Casper".
Constantinople update
This is a preparatory stage for Casper, after which the implementation of the final update of Serenity and the transition to Ethereum 2.0 will begin.
The Constantinople update consists of five EIPs: EIP 145, EIP 1283, EIP 1014, EIP 1234, EIP 1052.
- EIP 145 introduces a bit offset. This will allow you to process transactions more efficiently.
- EIP 1283 will reduce user gas costs.
- EIP 1014 introduces status and transaction channels outside the blockchain. The solution was developed by Vitalik Buterin and should improve the network scalability.
- EIP 1234 postpones the bomb for 1 year and reduces the reward for the found block from 3 to 2 ethers.
- EIP 1052 is responsible for network optimization and large-scale code execution.
