According to the official announcement on the Beacon Chain, the much-awaited upgrade to the  Ethereum  Ethereum Ethereum is an open source, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract functionality. Created in 2014, Ethereum now stands as the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap at the time of writing.As a decentralized cryptocurrency network and software platform, Ethereum represents the most prominent altcoin. Ethereum also enables the creation Distributed Applications, or dapps. Understanding EthereumEthereum boasts its own programming language, called Turing Complete, which is used to build the dapps. Dapps run on a peer-to-peer (P2P0 network of virtual machines. These can be just about anything and are optimized to run on Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts are pieces of code that execute a predetermined set of actions once a certain set of criteria are met. The Ethereum network’s native currency is called Ether, or ETH. ETH tokens can be used to pay for things inside of dapps or to receive payouts from smart contracts. They can also be traded off of the Ethereum network inside of cryptocurrency exchanges or OTC trading platforms. For most of its lifetime, Ethereum has remained as the second-largest and most popular cryptocurrency in terms of its market cap. It was briefly outpaced by Bitcoin Cash near the end of 2017.Ethereum’s origin dates back to late 2013 when crypto researcher and programmer Vitalik Buterin proposed its utility.Its development was subsequently funded by an online crowdsale that took place in the middle of 2014 before going live in July 2015. At its inception, Ethereum went live with 72 million coins minted, accounting for approximately 65 percent of its total circulating supply as of May 2020.Like other cryptos, Ethereum has had a checkered past, resulting in splits. Back in 2016, an exploited vulnerability in The DAO project's smart contract software caused the theft of $50 million worth of ether.As a result, Ethereum was split into two separate blockchains – a newer and separate version became known as Ethereum (ETH), while the original chain continued to be known as Ethereum Classic (ETC). Ethereum is an open source, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract functionality. Created in 2014, Ethereum now stands as the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap at the time of writing.As a decentralized cryptocurrency network and software platform, Ethereum represents the most prominent altcoin. Ethereum also enables the creation Distributed Applications, or dapps. Understanding EthereumEthereum boasts its own programming language, called Turing Complete, which is used to build the dapps. Dapps run on a peer-to-peer (P2P0 network of virtual machines. These can be just about anything and are optimized to run on Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts are pieces of code that execute a predetermined set of actions once a certain set of criteria are met. The Ethereum network’s native currency is called Ether, or ETH. ETH tokens can be used to pay for things inside of dapps or to receive payouts from smart contracts. They can also be traded off of the Ethereum network inside of cryptocurrency exchanges or OTC trading platforms. For most of its lifetime, Ethereum has remained as the second-largest and most popular cryptocurrency in terms of its market cap. It was briefly outpaced by Bitcoin Cash near the end of 2017.Ethereum’s origin dates back to late 2013 when crypto researcher and programmer Vitalik Buterin proposed its utility.Its development was subsequently funded by an online crowdsale that took place in the middle of 2014 before going live in July 2015. At its inception, Ethereum went live with 72 million coins minted, accounting for approximately 65 percent of its total circulating supply as of May 2020.Like other cryptos, Ethereum has had a checkered past, resulting in splits. Back in 2016, an exploited vulnerability in The DAO project's smart contract software caused the theft of $50 million worth of ether.As a result, Ethereum was split into two separate blockchains – a newer and separate version became known as Ethereum (ETH), while the original chain continued to be known as Ethereum Classic (ETC). Read this Term (ETH) Network is live now. The ETH community has shown great support for the upgrade with nearly 900,000 staked ETH, around 370,000 more than the original requirement of 524,288.

Ethereum plans to include a proof-of-stake network with the recent upgrade to address scalability problems in the network. Canadian-Russian Programmer and Co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin expressed his happiness over the launch and thanked the Ethereum community for constant support.

Ethereum 2.0 has been under construction since the genesis of the current proof-of-work (PoW) network in 2015. The newly launched Beacon chain holds significant importance for the overall structure of the Ethereum blockchain. Today’s launch of ‘Phase 0’ is just the first step towards a major shift to proof-of-stake (PoS).

Commenting on the launch of Ethereum 2.0 during a live stream, Danny Ryan, core researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, said: “Key to the health of this thing is we see participation over two thirds, I’m like hyped, it’s four in the morning and I’m hyped. We got all the metrics up and I’m very excited. I’m very confident in the launch but if something goes wrong I’m very confident in the engineer’s ability to fix it. We thought we were going to launch in December last year. It’s been a journey.”

Beacon Chain

The newly launched chain is the first step towards a complete shift of the Ethereum network. The Beacon chain will play a major role in the new  Blockchain  Blockchain Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned.) In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tamper with. The Evolution of BlockchainBlockchain was originally invented by an individual or group of people under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The purpose of blockchain was originally to serve as the public transaction ledger of Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency.In particular, bundles of transaction data, called “blocks”, are added to the ledger in a chronological fashion, forming a “chain.” These blocks include things like date, time, dollar amount, and (in some cases) the public addresses of the sender and the receiver.The computers responsible for upholding a blockchain network are called “nodes.” These nodes carry out the duties necessary to confirm the transactions and add them to the ledger. In exchange for their work, the nodes receive rewards in the form of crypto tokens.By storing data via a peer-to-peer network (P2P), blockchain controls for a wide range of risks that are traditionally inherent with data being held centrally.Of note, P2P blockchain networks lack centralized points of vulnerability. Consequently, hackers cannot exploit these networks via normalized means nor does the network possess a central failure point.In order to hack or alter a blockchain’s ledger, more than half of the nodes must be compromised. Looking ahead, blockchain technology is an area of extensive research across multiple industries, including financial services and payments, among others. Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned.) In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tamper with. The Evolution of BlockchainBlockchain was originally invented by an individual or group of people under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The purpose of blockchain was originally to serve as the public transaction ledger of Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency.In particular, bundles of transaction data, called “blocks”, are added to the ledger in a chronological fashion, forming a “chain.” These blocks include things like date, time, dollar amount, and (in some cases) the public addresses of the sender and the receiver.The computers responsible for upholding a blockchain network are called “nodes.” These nodes carry out the duties necessary to confirm the transactions and add them to the ledger. In exchange for their work, the nodes receive rewards in the form of crypto tokens.By storing data via a peer-to-peer network (P2P), blockchain controls for a wide range of risks that are traditionally inherent with data being held centrally.Of note, P2P blockchain networks lack centralized points of vulnerability. Consequently, hackers cannot exploit these networks via normalized means nor does the network possess a central failure point.In order to hack or alter a blockchain’s ledger, more than half of the nodes must be compromised. Looking ahead, blockchain technology is an area of extensive research across multiple industries, including financial services and payments, among others. Read this Term to rival giants, like Visa and PayPal. There are two important technical barriers to Ethereum 2.0. First is effectively breaking the PoS Ethereum blockchain into multiple datasets called 'shards' and secondly, adopting Rollups, a comprehensive solution for dapps.

The Ethereum community supported the project and showed great confidence, Finance Magnates earlier reported about the decision of Dubai’s IBC Group to stake around 22,000 Ethereum in support of Ethereum 2.0.