Ethereum 2.0 is not a new idea. As early as 2014, Vitalik mentioned the concept of Ethereum 2.0. He said: "We will either solve scalability and consensus issues, or die by trying." Well, we still Live well, and his latest opinion released a few weeks ago is: "For Ethereum 2.0, theoretically, there are no obvious unresolved problems."
Now is the time to implement these theories, and the Beacon chain is the first component of the Ethereum 2.0 delivery plan. In this article, we will discuss what it does, why it does this, and how developers develop it.
Introduction to Beacon Chain
In a previous article, the author introduced the concept of Ethereum 2.0. Here we show it through the Ethereum 2.0 system architecture diagram provided by Hsiao-Wei Wang:
This diagram can also be used as a step-by-step roadmap for the development and delivery of Ethereum 2.0, in order from top to bottom:
· The PoW main chain is the part of Ethereum that exists today: the current Ethereum mainnet. In the Ethereum 2.0 system, it will continue to operate as it does today. And everything below is new.
· Beacon chain is currently under development, and it will also be the first component to be delivered;
· The shard chain will be the next delivery component and it is also the source of scalability. Initially, the shard chain will simply aggregate transactions and reach a consensus on their ordering without executing them. This will be a good test of system infrastructure and security;
· The VM layer is the last important part of the Ethereum 2.0 system, which will provide the execution of contracts and transactions;
Why do we need a "Beacon" chain?
The Beacon chain is a brand new PoS blockchain. It is the spine that supports the entire new Ethereum 2.0 system. Its existence allows the entire system to remain alive, and it is responsible for commanding all the components of the Ethereum 2.0 system.
(The Beacon chain commands the entire Ethereum 2.0 system)
The key function of the Beacon chain is to manage the PoS protocol (Casper) and all shard chains. It has a lot of work to do: manage the validators and their stakes; designate the selected block proposer for each shard at each step; organize the validators to enter the committee and vote on the proposed block ; Apply consensus rules; implement rewards and penalties for validators; and, as an anchor point, where shards will register their status to facilitate cross-shard transactions;
Before we delve deeper into these features, please understand the terminology. The name of the Beacon chain originated from the concept of "random beacon", which provides a source of randomness for other parts of the system, and the Dfinity project also adopted the concept of random beacon in its blockchain environment. Each participating node maintains its own local Beacon chain and strives to keep pace with other nodes. Perhaps the image with command on it is misleading. Although the Beacon chain does command the rest of the system, its commander is decentralized, just like every musician has his own sense of rhythm.
Some features of Beacon chain
Let's take a look at some of the functions of the Beacon chain.
Manage validators
One of the main tasks of the Beacon chain is to maintain a set of validators. These validator nodes need to apply for joining by collateralizing ether, and they will be responsible for running the Ethereum 2.0 system. The validator can have multiple states, but only those nodes marked as "acTIve" can participate in the operation of the Ethereum 2.0 protocol.
Participants who want to join the validator set can send 32 Ether to a Beacon chain contract through the current Ethereum PoW main chain. After some validity checks, these coins will be locked and the contract will be issued Log entries ("events" in Solidity), which can be received by the Beacon chain client. Then the selected node can be imported into the verifier set of the Beacon chain.
Once activated, validators can propose blocks and participate in the Ethereum 2.0 protocol. When these blocks are selected, they will appear on both the Beacon chain and the shard chain (once they are implemented). As described below, these validators will also join the committee that voted on the block.
Verifiers can also signal that they wish to exit the system and stop participating in the operation of the protocol. After a period of time (currently 97 days, but may be more flexible), their deposit (32 Ether) plus rewards minus fines will be returned to a shard chain. Unlocking the initial rights and interests on the PoW mainnet is unlikely, unless the entire system fails and the community agrees to refund the withdrawal.
All the above work is managed by the Beacon chain.
Provide randomness
It is difficult to generate good randomness in a blockchain system, and the key requirement of a proof-of-stake protocol is the source of randomness, which must be distributed, verifiable, and unpredictable , And is inalienable. The Beacon chain is responsible for providing this randomness to the rest of the system: the functions of the several protocols described below depend on this randomness.
The current random number generation is done through the RANDAO structure, and the verifier will provide a "hash onion". The RANDAO structure is just a way to combine the contributions (single random number) provided by many participants into a single output number. In order to prevent any participant from significantly manipulating randomness, the developer uses a commit–reveal scheme. When the verifier registers, it will provide a promise value, which is generated after multiple hashes of the original number chosen by it. Each time the verifier is selected as the proposer, it strips off one or more layers of the "onion" by providing the last pre-image that reveals the number. Everyone else can check whether this was done correctly, so the proponent cannot cheat the system by changing its contribution.
Although this scheme is not irreplaceable, if the proposer does not like this random number, he can choose to skip it, but for the current protocol design, this is already robust enough.
Block proposer
The Beacon chain will manage its PoS protocol and each shard chain. In the proof-of-work system, the miner node will be responsible for selecting the next block. In the PoS system, there is no mining process, so the block producer randomly selects the block proposer based on the randomness in the above protocol.
Another feature of the PoW system is that the block time is irregular, even though the block generation time of Ethereum is about 15 seconds on average. In contrast, we describe the block generation of the Beacon chain as a heartbeat. Ethereum 2.0 blocks are regularly generated every 16 seconds (if testing is feasible, it may be reduced to 8 seconds). This 16-second period is called "slot" (time slot);
In each slot, the proposer selected by the Beacon chain will collect all protocol votes (proofs) from the Beacon chain verifier set of the previous block and include them in the block released.
Once the shard chain is ready, each shard will have a proposer of its own choice in each slot. They will collect the transactions of the shard and incorporate them into a vote of the shard committee In the block
Committee
An important source of security for a proof-of-stake blockchain is committees, which are responsible for voting on the blocks that constitute the true history of the blockchain. The Beacon chain relies on the calculation of votes from its committee, which we call "proofs" in order to agree and finalize its history. In an ideal situation, if proofs can be collected quickly, all members of the committee can become effective verifiers in the system.
In addition, the Beacon chain will randomly designate a smaller subcommittee for each shard, which will be responsible for confirming the correct behavior of the proposer of the shard at an appropriate time.
Rewards and punishments
Another management role of the Beacon chain is to track and update the deposit of validators.
If validators perform well and play their role, they will be rewarded: this is the motivation for validators to participate in the Ethereum 2.0 system. However, if the verifier violates the rules. Then their 32 Ether deposits will be reduced (slashed), and when it reaches a certain level, these validators will be eliminated by the system. If the validator is absent (not voting on the block), the system will also have a small penalty, which we call a "quadraTIc leak". The reason is subtle, and the system can continue to process blocks even when a large number of validators are offline (for example, in the event of a disaster).
If the verifier’s deposit is less than 16 Ether, the Beacon chain will remove the verifier from the verifier set;
Crosslinks
Finally, the Beacon chain will perform the cross-linking process. Cross-linking is responsible for connecting the entire fragmentation system together, and it is responsible for anchoring each fragment in the spine of the Beacon chain.
Periodically, the current state of each shard ("combined data root") will be recorded in the Beacon chain and used as a cross-link. When the Beacon chain block is completed, the corresponding shard block is considered finalized, and other shards can be confident that they can rely on it for cross-shard transactions.
Visualized Beacon chain (blue part), it has 8 shard chains (turquoise part) and related cross-links (light blue line). All completed blocks on the chain are yellow, and the time increases from left to right. (Picture from Casey Detrio)
Build the Beacon chain
Soon, we will end our Beacon chain lightning journey! On its own, the Beacon chain may not seem particularly useful. It cannot handle arbitrary transactions: it has no smart contracts, and it has no EVM virtual machine. You can't do anything with it. However, as the first component of Ethereum 2.0, it is the foundation of the entire system. The entire spectacular Ethereum 2.0 building will be based on this. Therefore, it must be solid.
If you want to get into the details, there is currently an ongoing Beacon chain specification. All the creation and maintenance of this specification is done publicly: interested parties are welcome to join.
In order to run the Beacon chain, you need to use a Beacon chain client. Many well-known Ethereum clients (Geth, Parity, Pantheon, etc.) are under development. You can view the list of what I know here, which contains a link to its GitHub code repository. PrysmaTIc and Lighthouse are regularly updating their client development progress, and some teams are also offering rewards to contributors.
Regarding the progress... At the time of writing this article, the completion of the technical specifications of the Beacon chain is close to 60%. Nonetheless, developers expect to reasonably complete this specification before the end of this year, and may run a multi-client Beacon chain test network by the end of the first quarter of 2019. In recent weeks, the related development has been very rapid, and the real discussion about Ethereum 2.0 is kicking off!
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