Ethereum can already announce the third hard fork this year. The network is thus moving further in the direction of a transformation towards a proof-of-stake-based consensus mechanism.
The Ethereum network is continuing to work on the energy-saving transformation towards proof-of-stake (PoS). After the hard forks “Berlin” in April and “London” in August of this year, the next important step towards Ethereum 2.0 follows. Like different core developers on Twitter to report, the launch of the latest upgrade “Altair” was successful. According to Ethereum co-developer Preston Van Loon, the participation rate is currently around 95 percent and therefore in the green area.
Altair brings innovations to the Beacon Chain, i.e. the engine of Ethereum 2.0, which is to merge with the ETH mainnet after the successful PoS conversion. In addition to smaller patches, there are mainly two novelties that the upgrade brings with it. On the one hand, the hard fork introduces so-called light client support. These network nodes, also known as light nodes, can now synchronize with validators and run on mobile devices with low resource requirements. On the other hand, the implementation of the “slashing” function is the second central component of the update. This is a kind of disciplinary measure that the network can impose on inactive or abusive validators. Specifically, this means that your deposited ETH tokens can be confiscated. This is intended to strengthen the link between the nodes and the network, argues the Ethereum Foundation.
Crypto space reacts in two ways
Although the Altair Hard Fork is very popular within the Ethereum community, there are also critical voices. Some see the latest update as the final proof that the ETH network is a centralized playground for its developers. One of them is TON Labs Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer (CTO) Mitja Gorovshevsky:
The punishment of validators for not adhering to this upgrade is further evidence that the developers are indeed centrally managing the Ethereum network.
Mitja Gorovshevsky, CTO at TON Labs
Ultimately, the node operators have no choice but to come to terms with the innovations. Because as long as the unruly validators refuse to switch to the update, they are cut off from the beacon chain. Further punishments could follow, says Ioana Frincu from the DeFi platform EQIFI.
According to Van Loon, the number of those who have not yet upgraded to Altair is just under 5 percent. To what extent there is a threat of internal trench warfare remains to be seen. So far it seems as if one wants to counteract previous deficits compared to competing projects such as Solana or Cardano as quickly as possible. In addition, it is still unknown when the actual switch to Ethereum 2.0 will take place. Mastermind Vitalik Buterin also kept a low profile.