The architects of Ethereum have announced a further postponement of the “difficulty bomb,” a portion of the consensus mechanism that would ultimately render Ethereum mining impossible.
This statement is additional bad news for Ethereum aficionados who hoped the Ethereum 2.0 integration would be completed in August. Mikhail Kalinin, a researcher at ConsenSys, formally launched work on the Ethereum upgrade in July of last year. Since then, many developers have informed the larger community about the conversion of Ethereum’s energy-intensive proof-of-work progress algorithm to a PoS method.
While no official release date has been established, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has said that the update might be ready by August, barring any major obstacles.
Delays in hazardous bomb
The most recent developer update was published on Friday and detailed potential delays to the deployment of the “difficulty bomb,” a piece of code that, when activated, will gradually force miners off the Ethereum blockchain by increasing mining difficulty until it becomes impossible to mine the cryptocurrency. Developers have already deployed and previously postponed the difficulty bomb.
After testing the merging for flaws on the Ropsten testnet, one of Ethereum’s oldest testnets, developers were forced to delay the release of Ethereum 2.0 on Friday due to issues. According to developer Danny Ryan, fourteen percent of network validators, including those responsible for network security, were brought down when the new code was installed.
Ryan said that he would “leap for joy” if the code in its present condition was deployed on the main Ethereum network. He characterised the Ropsten test as a circumstance in which 9 percent of validators have setup issues and certain stakers are affected by two small defects (those who lock up coins for a chance to validate transactions and secure a proof-of-stake network).
Other developers, though, are more cautious and advocate delaying the release until all bugs have been resolved.
“Delaying it gives you time,” said Thomas Jay Rush in a conference call conducted by Tim Beiko, the lead developer. It appears horrible to the community, but you can’t do much about it.
Beiko believes that resetting the difficulty bomb would provide developers with some breathing space and avoid burnout.
“If we must postpone something, I believe it should be for a reasonable amount of time in order to preserve a feeling of urgency. However, excessive pressure may lead to team burnout, which is another problem we want to avoid.
Alexey Sharp, another developer, said that they are already working nonstop and do not need a “feeling of urgency.”
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