WATCH: Vitalik Buterin Explains the New Tech Behind Eth 2.0

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Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin at ETHDenver 2020.Where do things stand with the tech overhaul of the world's second-largest blockchain?

We took the question to ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin at ETHDenver last weekend.

Eth 2.0 is the next iteration of the ethereum blockchain, incorporating novel protocol designs such as proof-of-stake and sharding.

Last December, Buterin released a blog post on ways to speed up the launch of Eth 2.0, which has been in the works for years.

Eth 2.0 scientists expect sharding - a method of grouping ethereum holders together for transaction validation - to improve transaction speed on the network.

In other words, the Eth 2.0 blockchain would be lighter to operate.

The project's lead developers recently announced plans to launch Eth 2.0 as early as this summer.

As part of the switchover from the current Proof-of-Work network, known as Eth 1.x, Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation have proposed running the current network on Eth 2.0's skeleton until the latter is fully built out.

Ultimately, Eth 1.x will exist as basically a giant receipt of pre-2.0 transactions.

"The account balance and all the applications keep running as is, but the Proof-of-Work chain as it exists would be gone. And there would not even be two separate chains: Eth 1.x transactions and Eth 2.0 would all be in the same block."

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