Ethereum is a protocol present process vital adjustments. Client groups are upgrading the protocol to scale to fulfill world demand whereas enhancing safety and decentralization. Beyond protocol growth, a vital shift in Ethereum has been the motion away from ‘Eth1’ and ‘Eth2’ terminology. As of late 2021, core builders stopped utilizing the terminology, preferring ‘execution layer’ and ‘consensus layer’, respectively. Today, 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 method stays the identical
- You don’t have to do something
Where 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 method and to transition to proof-of-stake. Early on, researchers labored on these efforts individually, however round 2018 they had been mixed right into a single roadmap below the “Ethereum 2.0” umbrella.
As a part of that roadmap, the prevailing proof-of-work chain (Eth1) would ultimately be deprecated through the problem bomb. Users & purposes 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 totally. This led to a revival of analysis initiatives on the proof-of-work chain akin to Stateless Ethereum, a paradigm that may take away the untouched state from the community to sure its development fee.
The elevated concentrate on making the proof-of-work chain long-term sustainable paired with the conclusion 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 could additionally make for a a lot smoother transition for purposes, 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 shoppers in his Eth1+Eth2 shopper relationship submit. This would massively cut back the event work required to ship a post-merge system and leverage current shoppers, which had been battle-tested for years on Mainnet. Around the identical time, analysis on rollups as a viable and safe option to scale Ethereum proved promising. Instead of ready on a posh, unsure scaling answer years away, we might shift the main focus in the direction of scaling through rollups as an alternative of sharded execution.
Want to dive deeper? Check out Danny Ryan’s “Eth1 + Eth2 = Ethereum” ETHGlobal presentation.
Why can’t we simply use Eth2?
Mental fashions
One main downside with the Eth2 branding is that it creates a damaged psychological mannequin for brand 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
As the roadmap for Ethereum has advanced, Ethereum 2.0 has turn into an inaccurate illustration of Ethereum’s roadmap. Being cautious and correct in our phrase selection permits content material on Ethereum to be understood by the broadest viewers attainable.
Scam prevention
Unfortunately, malicious actors have tried to make use of the Eth2 misnomer to rip-off customers by telling them to swap their ETH for ‘ETH2’ tokens or that they need to one way or the other migrate their ETH earlier than the Eth2 improve.
We hope this up to date terminology will convey 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, provided that customers of those providers usually are not 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 know 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 adjustments
ethereum.org
- Our ‘Eth2’ assets (ethereum.org/en/eth2) at the moment are our ‘Ethereum upgrades’ part
- Individual options at the moment are known as ‘upgrades’
- All pages beforehand discussing Eth2 have been up to date, with explanations included the place acceptable
The rebrand was a large job with many content material adjustments. There are possible situations we missed and enhancements nonetheless to be made. Notice one thing that wants fixing? Raise a difficulty or open a PR on the ethereum.org GitHub.
Staking Launchpad
Update February 1, 2022
As a part of the good renaming, we have additionally up to date the Ethereum Staking Launchpad (previously often known as the Eth2 Launchpad) to mirror the terminology adjustments. Please elevate a difficulty or create a PR if we missed something.
Content translations
If 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+ further languages at the moment are outdated and nonetheless reference Eth2 terminology. Please take into account getting concerned.
We’ve up to date our content material buckets to incorporate an Ethereum upgrades bucket. This will empower our a whole lot of energetic contributors to the Translation Program to straight goal these adjustments to publish the brand new correct data throughout languages extra shortly.
Interested in serving to to translate ethereum.org or the Ethereum Staking Launchpad? Check out our translation program.
A remaining be aware
To many, ethereum.org is seen as a reputable supply of knowledge maintained by our group. Understandably, many didn’t wish to shift away from Eth2 terminology till ethereum.org did. We hope that our adjustments will encourage others to maneuver away from the outdated Eth2 terminology. By doing so, you may be serving to to create consistency and readability throughout the ecosystem, permitting for extra correct psychological fashions and making Ethereum extra accessible.
Special due to Tim Beiko and Trent Van Epps whose writings had been closely referenced on this article.
