By
Temitope Olatunji
April 18th, 2024
The developers of the Ethereum 2.0 project will launch the network final public testnet on August 4, reaffirming the possibility of the release of ETH 2.0 in 2020.
The developers of Ethereum 2.0 have confirmed that the final testnet of the novel project is on course to launch on August 4th. The final Testnet which will go public will last for at least three months to ensure the stability of the system before the entire project goes live. Confirming the schedule, Danny Ryan posted the update on the Ethereum 2.0 testnet discussion board on discord. He said:
“After discussions with client teams, the next multi-client testnet (mainnet config including min validator numbers) will have a min genesis time of Aug 4 (likely 1 or 2 pm UTC).”
He added that the team will be showcasing “Launchpad” in the testnet. Launchpad is the network’s educational deposit interface aimed at hobbyists, and further details would be made public in a couple of days.
Phase 0, the first stage in the long-awaited Ethereum 2.0 protocol running on a Proof-of-Stake with a guaranteed increase in transaction speeds. Phase 0 has been running on various testnets since the genesis block was created for the Beacon Chain back in April.
Positive Testing Stages Recorded
The first testnet on the Beacon Chain was called Sapphire and it was launched in April with 3.2 ETH deposits. With its success, the Topaz testnet went live with the full 32 ETH nodes in May which also featured the issuance of staking rewards.
The Onyx testnet commenced in June and was running steadily with around 20,000 validators by the end of the month. Finally, the Altona coordinated multi-client testnet for Phase 0 went live in early July to ensure stability before a public testnet could be rolled out.
As a complement to the previous testings, the project developer, Danny Ryan dared hackers to attack the Ethereum 2.0 testnet via tweet both for reward and fame. This move is important to verify the integrity of the system as it works hard to go live.
Announcing eth2 attacknets — beta-0! https://t.co/nMXChoDaVH
We welcome white hats to bring down the two beta-0 attacknets for reward and fame 🙂
Check out the new "attacknets" channel on the eth r&d discord for discussion
— dannyryan (@dannyryan) July 20, 2020
Turning Ethereum Testnet and Mainnet Delay into Strength
The Ethereum 2.0 project has been marred by a lot of delays which to an extent has reduced public trust in the project. The detection of bugs in the new Ethereum 2.0 code has been attributed as the main reason for the delayed launch initially set for January 2020.
The network was developed with seven clients and most of them are working on optimizations for the Schlesi test network which will represent the first Ethereum 2.0 multi-client test network that simulates the core network environment. Before launch, all these networks and clients had to be properly synchronized so there will be no post-launch code-breaking which can bring panic to the new ecosystem.
Earlier in July, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake said that Phase 0 might go live in January of 2021 at the earliest, while Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said that he “personally quite disagree[s] with this” and that he “would favor launching phase 0 significantly before that date regardless of the level of readiness.
With the current strides by the project developers particularly the network’s attempt to gain stability in the wake of the DeFi boom as well as Vitalik Buterin’s determination to see the project launched in 2020, the Ethereum 2.0 previous delays might have turned out to have given way for the developers to finalize on important updates that are essential to meet the ethereum community’s expectation for the network’s PoS upgrade.