Ethereum 2.0, also known as Ethereum upgrade or Ethereum network upgrade, is a historic upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain. Its goal is to improve the scalability, security, and sustainability of Ethereum to meet the growing needs of DeFi applications and users. The following are the profound impacts of Ethereum 2.0 on DeFi:
Highly scalable
Ethereum 2.0 introduces sharding technology, which divides the network into multiple fragments to process transactions and smart contracts. This will greatly increase Ethereum's processing power, enabling more transactions to be carried out simultaneously, thereby improving the throughput and performance of DeFi applications.
Low transaction fees
The Ethereum 2.0 upgrade will adopt a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, replacing the current proof-of-work mechanism. This means that users no longer need to mine to participate in network verification, thereby reducing energy consumption and transaction fees. Low transaction fees will make DeFi applications more affordable and usable.
Safety and reliability
The Ethereum 2.0 upgrade will introduce a new chain called ETH2, which will improve the security and reliability of Ethereum. ETH2 will use sharding technology and proof-of-stake mechanism, reducing the potential risk of attacks and providing higher network security.
New features and tools
Ethereum 2.0 will introduce some new features and tools, such as the executable environment eWASM, abstract state tree, and contract execution engine. These features and tools will provide DeFi developers with more innovation space and development tools, accelerate the development of DeFi applications and increase their diversity.
Ecosystem Development
The upgrade of Ethereum 2.0 will further promote the development of the Ethereum ecosystem. Better scalability and low transaction fees will attract more developers and users to participate in DeFi projects and promote the prosperity and innovation of the DeFi ecosystem.
Ethereumâs competitors
Ethereumâs competitors are often referred to as âEthereum killers.â Various DeFi protocols are striving to become the leading scalable blockchain in the market, such as Solana and Cardano, which are currently the two largest Ethereum competitors.
Here are some of Ethereumâs main competitors:
Solana: An open-source blockchain that leverages high-performance technologies to increase scalability and network security.
Cardano: A public PoS blockchain founded by Charles Hoskinson, one of the co-founders of Ethereum.
Avalanche: An open-source platform for launching dApps and interoperable blockchains.
Compound: A decentralized crypto lending protocol with its own governance token COMP.
Ether is a cryptocurrency that is in almost every crypto enthusiastâs portfolio, as most altcoins require you to invest in Ether. Secondly, few projects have as much support and research as the Ethereum platform.
Despite its strong competitors, we can consider Ethereum to be the worldâs supercomputer and the main hub for asset tokenization. Ethereum is often called the successor to Bitcoin, the only viable cryptocurrency, and even the âRussian Bitcoin.â A lot has been said about Ethereum, but there is no doubt that it represents a world of possibilities.
Ethereum goes to space
On June 4, 2023, the open-source satellite network SpaceChain sent the first Ethereum node into space to verify the full capabilities of Ethereum technology. The company conducted the first demonstration of the Ethereum blockchain in hardware on the International Space Station (ISS), which was launched via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Once the Ethereum node is activated, clients will be able to conduct enterprise business transactions and fintech applications. The first client of SpaceChain to have access to the blockchain is Nexus Inc, a global digital asset management company.
âIn 2019, we launched a payload for Bitcoin, and today we are launching our second-generation Ethereum payload. Bitcoin and Ethereum represent the two largest ecosystems in the blockchain industry. Running Ethereumâs smart contract platform in outer space allows us to strengthen the security and immutability of blockchain applications and transactions, and allow more users and developers to participate in our technology.â â Zee Zheng, Co-founder and CEO of SpaceChain.
Ethereumâs long road to Serenity
It all started with Frontier, the first version of the Ethereum network. Frontier allowed developers to interact with the network and build decentralized applications and tools based on ETH. Once Frontier proved successful, Homestead, the second major version of Ethereum, was released in 2015.
Homestead brought some protocol changes, like a command-line interface and more stability. However, the bigger change was Metropolis, which was released after Homestead before launching in 2020. This version brought more features to the network, making it more user-friendly and opening the door to tokenization and dApp development.
Now, the cryptocurrency and DeFi community is eager to know what will happen after Serenity goes live. Many expect prices to rise due to high demand, while others believe it will change DeFi forever.
Summarize
Despite having strong competitors, Ethereum has an infrastructure that puts it in a very good position, despite the setbacks. Other projects have already outperformed the competition in terms of scalability and security, but those so-called âEthereum killersâ still have a long way to go in surpassing Ethereum. In this technological world, anything is possible, and tomorrow comes.
