Using rollups, Vitalik Buterin promises a massive 100x in transaction throughput for the Ethereum network. When combined with Sharding the output can multiple to 6400x.
Last week, Ethereum 2.0 developers launched the Spadina testnet, however, failed to garner enough participation from node validators. Today, October 5, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has briefed the developments and the updated roadmap for Ethereum 2.0 in a series of tweets. The existing Ethereum blockchain has been struggling to offer the scalability demand, especially after the latest DeFi craze. The crypto community has pinned its hopes on the launch of PoS Ethereum 2.0 which promises massive scalability. But we know that the launch has been long delayed so far. Vitalik Buterin has briefed some short and medium-term scalability milestones for Ethereum.
A quick recap of the short and medium term of Ethereum scaling.
TLDR:
1. Ultra-high scaling with sharding + rollups will be possible *in phase 1*
2. Sharding is NOT “cancelled”
3. Get on a rollup asap; you get 100x scaling even without eth2 pic.twitter.com/fXW0Q3iAxu— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 5, 2020
Buterin said that the Phase 0 launch, which promises a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Ethereum blockchain, is coming soon. Interestingly, he talks about rollups that offer 100x in transaction throughput. On the other hand, the sharding of data promises a 64x increase in throughput. But Buterin noted that Rollups stacked on top of Sharding would give a 6400x increase in throughput. However, there’s a caveat to attain this throughput efficiency. Buterin added:
“…. the roadmap has an interesting unintended artefact: sharded applications by themselves need phase 2. But sharded rollups only need phase 1, because rollups use the chain only for data, not for computation. So we will have all the tools we need for 6400x throughput quite soon!”
He further explained that ” it’s not “rollups instead of sharding”, it’s “rollups on top of sharding”. That said, rollups are already here or coming soon even before sharding, and rollups without sharding still offer that 100x increase in throughput. So get on a rollup today!”
Base Layer Scalability on Ethereum Still Years Away
Buterin said that the early phases of ETH 2.0 are coming two. However, he notes that the base-layer scalability will arrive only with the last major update to Phase 2, which is still years away.
The latest DeFi craze has pushed gas fee on the Ethereum platform to new all-time highs. Well, again it has been the case that small DeFi projects have been pushed out of the market leaving the opportunity only for big players. Buterin said that we have no options but to opt for Layer 2 scalability at this stage. He noted:
The L1 is nearly unusable for many classes of applications, and there’s no non-L2 path that can get us to scalability in the short-to-medium term.
Coming to the Ethereum 2.0 developments so far, the Medella testnet has completed two months so far. As per TrustNodes, it has already grown to 75 gigabytes of data per node while staking over 2 million simulated ETH. The Trustnode article mentions some interesting facts. It states:
“The two months old ethereum 2.0 testnet has already grown to the size of 75GB of data per node. That’s more than 20% of bitcoin’s data usage in its decade long processing of data and all within just weeks. Bitcoin has grown to 350 GB since its inception in 2009, while the ethereum 2.0 testnet is now already at 76 GB of data for an archive node. Ethereum’s blockchain has grown quicker than bitcoin’s at nearly 500 GB of size in just four years”.
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Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.
