ETH2 Is Coming Soon

Ethereum has an update coming soon; it goes to version 2.0. The most notable difference is that it goes to a Proof of Stake system instead of Proof of Work system. What that means is that you can use a small computer as a node and help the network validate the blocks. Earlier you had to have a beast of a machine to ever validate and get rewarded.

This sounds great for the little guy, but you now have to have 32 ether to participate. That amount is staked; if you behave well the amount will go up because of rewards. If you misbehave, you can be punished and lose funds. This is to ensure that nobody tries to create fake blocks and ruin consensus.

Conclusion

Ethereum is growing into a formidable force in finance and tech. Being able to use different wallets and services can help you handle your own finances – and maybe even publish your own art.

I should add that the power of Ethereum comes with the need for caution. Smart contracts are visible on the blockchain, and a bug or security hole in the code could lead to exploitation. Back in 2016, nearly $50 million in ether was drained from Ethereum accounts in this kind of attack, although the developers were able to claw the money back through a hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain. Several updates have improved security since that time, but be aware of the need to test your code thoroughly and use secure programming techniques.

Web 3.0 will be based on digital currencies and their surrounding technologies. Hopefully Ethereum will improve the web experience for most users and help balance the power on the web.

Figure 6: In the sandbox, you can both write the code and test what happens when you use the functions.

Figure 5: Cakeshop terminal output: The lion with the cake is a marker so that you can see the address to point your browser.

The Author

Mats Tage Axelsson has a set of modes that he still has not found the keyboard shortcut to change.