Ethereum (ETH) will go through a scheduled network upgrade on Wednesday, June 29, 2022. This date can be variable due to block size. So what is changing in the network with this rise?
What is Gray Glacier? Why is it important for Ethereum?
The Gray Glacier network upgrade changes the parameters of the difficulty bomb to about 100 days of regression. The difficulty grenade has been pushed back in five different network upgrades. Byzantium, Constantinople, Muir Glacier, London and the latest Arrow Glacier network upgrade. Other than that, Gray Glacier doesn’t bring any additional changes.
Ethereum developer Tim Beiko is optimistic that the Gray Glacier upgrade could be the final delay of the difficulty bomb. In a recent tweet, he shared the following blog post detailing the upgrade.
The difficulty bomb only affects the Ethereum mainnet. Because the Ropsten stage has already switched to the PoS mechanism. As a result, Gray Glacier will not be deployed on any testnet. According to Ethereum engineer Tim Beiko, the term “Gray Glacier” is preferred because it “literally” merges with another glacier.
What is Ethereum difficulty bomb?
The difficulty bomb, which has always been a part of Ethereum, quickly raises the difficulty of producing coins until it becomes impossible. Once the bomb explodes and is allowed to explode, it means that the days before the merge (the transition to PoS) are imminent.
The developers have not yet officially specified a specific date for the merge. But Vitalik Buterin says it could happen in August or, at the latest, in September/October, if it’s not a big problem. The decision to delay the difficulty bomb raises concerns that the long-awaited upgrade might take longer than expected.
What will change with ETH 2.0?
The multi-stage upgrade aims to improve the scalability and security of the Ethereum network through various changes to the network’s infrastructure. Moreover, it will enable PoS transition from PoW model.
ETH 2.0, also known as ETH 2.0 or “Serenity”, is the most important Ethereum upgrade. The upgrade aims to increase the speed, efficiency and scalability of the Ether network so that it can avoid bottlenecks and process more transactions at the same time.
As it is known, ETH 2.0 has been released in several stages with the first upgrade called Beacon Chain which will be released on December 1, 2020. Beacon Chain brings Ethereum staking, a key feature of the network’s transition to a PoS consensus mechanism. As the name suggests, Ethereum is a separate Blockchain from the mainnet.
Migration to PoS delivers high throughput for NFTs
The current Ethereum network, on the other hand, processes only about 30 transactions per second. This causes network delays and congestion. In particular, Ethereum 2.0 will provide a capacity of up to 100,000 transactions per second. This increase will be achieved through the implementation of other chains.
As a result, more scalability means more usage. It will also cause more demand for ETH. Most investors and experts say that with this rise, Ethereum will attract institutional attention.