First Ethereum Shadow Fork Goes Live
Ethereum (ETH), the second most popular cryptocurrency, edges closer from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) one. This migration is hoped to make ETH more scalable, energy-efficient, and secure. The Merge is a culmination of several years of research and development work by the Ethereum community.
The first step in this transition has already been completed with the launch of Ethereum Shadow Fork (ESF). The successful launch of the fork is a huge step as the developers of the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap continue transitioning to a proof-of-stake (PoS) system.
Parithosh Jayanthi, one of Ethereum’s Foundation developers, tweeted that The shadow fork is a way to “stress test our assumptions around syncing and state growth,” and will provide “a way to check if our assumptions work on existing testnets and/or mainnet.”
The first hard fork bringing in the new staking protocol is called Ethereum Shadow. Ethereum Shadow (ETHSH) is a direct fork of Ethereum (ETH), and aims to provide a solution to ETH’s high energy consumption and slow transaction speeds. ETHSH will use a “shadow chain” which will run in parallel to the main Ethereum blockchain. The shadow chain will be responsible for processing transactions, while the main blockchain will be used for storage and final settlement. This will allow ETHSH to process transactions much faster than ETH, while still maintaining the same high level of security.
The team behind ETHSH is led by former Ethereum Foundation developer, Vitalik Buterin. They are backed by some of the biggest crypto investors. This allowed the team to start “mining” ETHSH coins.
The first Ethereum Shadow Fork (ETHSH) block was mined on March 15, 2020. The project’s lead developer, Vitalik Buterin, announced the news on his Twitter feed.
This is a big moment for the Ethereum community as ETHSH is the first-ever fork of the Ethereum blockchain. It is also the first time that a proof-of-work (PoW) chain has been forked to a proof-of-stake (PoS) chain.
The fork was created in response to the high fees and slow transaction times on the Ethereum network. ETHSH uses a new consensus algorithm called “proof of stake shadowing” which is designed to be more efficient.
Ethereum (ETH) developers stressed that this is a revolutionary event: newbie Ethereans are not recommended to join the process.
Sometime in mid-March, The transition process reached another important milestone with Kiln testnet merge, when a PoW execution layer merged with a PoS Beacon Chain.
Ethereum (ETH) developers just announced the agenda for the development of Shanghai, the next hard fork for the first smart contracts platform. It is designed to optimize the performance and resource efficiency of Ethereum’s L2s. The hard fork is set to go live on mainnet on April 15.
The upcoming fork will bring a number of important changes to the network. One of the key features is ethereum’s first ever “proof of stake shadowing” which is designed to be more efficient.
Ethereum (ETH) developers stressed that this is a revolutionary event: newbie Ethereans are not recommended to join the process.
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