Over the past few weeks, Ethereum as a network has seen a spike in transactions and active users.
Just days ago data from Santiment indicated that the number of daily active addresses passed a two year high. Simultaneously, the number of daily confirmed transactions ticked past 1,000,000, making many think back to the 2018 bubble.
Fees, though, have responded in kind, reaching a multi-year high.
Enter Ethereum 2.0, an upgrade slated to dramatically change how the network operates.
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What is Ethereum 2.0?
In short, Ethereum 2.0 is a new iteration of the blockchain that will cast aside Proof of Work (mining) and the current virtual machine for a new system.
The new system will be based on Proof of Stake, which removes miners from the equation, sharding, and other technologies. In doing so, the speed, transaction throughput, and decentralization of the network will be increased. The amount of power Ethereum consumes will also be reduced.
At the March 2019 Ethereum Asia Supermeetup in Hong Kong, Vitalik Buterin said the following on the upgrade:
“[It is] a way to bring technical improvements, like PoS and sharding, together to improve the Virtual Machine, Merkle Trees, the efficiency of the protocol, and a whole bunch of small technical things that you have never heard of.”
It’s important to know that due to the changes being implemented, transitioning to Ethereum 2.0 is an arduous process.
It’s so arduous that technically speaking, there will be two blockchains running at the same and data will be transferred over in a multi-year process.
Bison Trails Backs Upgrade
To help ease the transition, firms are springing to provide products that allow one to interact more easily with Ethereum 2.0. One such firm is Bison Trails, a Libra Association partner that announced “support for Eth2” on July 1st.
According to the announcement, the firm will be offering a “suite of enterprise products.” These products will “make it easy to interact with the Beacon Chain, stake ETH, and automatically manage validators, validator clients, and beacon nodes.”
Bison Trails will also help its clients automatically manage their infrastructure in relation to Ethereum 2.0:
“Bison Trails’ autoscaling software will manage customers’ infrastructure automatically, as network requirements change and customers choose to add more validators. This innovation will enable Bison Trails’ customers to continue earning rewards without the hassle of manually managing participation.”
It is unclear which firms currently are looking for a service like this. Yet, it is important to point out that there may be individuals and exchanges incentivized to migrate to Ethereum 2.0 due to staking rewards.
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Featured Image from Unsplash Price tags: ethusd Libra Partner Bison Trails Just Announced Support for Ethereum 2.0