Ethereum has been the dominant name in the smart contract space for years, but it is showing signs of age. The Ethereum 2.0 upgrade promises to usher in a new era of blockchain technology that will ensure its place as the world’s leading platform for building decentralized applications (dApps). As we approach this next phase, let’s take a look at what each candidate has going for them and why they may or may not be part of that next generation of blockchain technology.
What is the next Ethereum? Before we answer that, let’s talk about Ethereum 2.0.
Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. The Ethereum blockchain provides a platform for DApps to be built on top of it, which allows developers to create their own projects. First released in 2015, Ethereum has been updated several times since then, with new versions being released every six months or so. These updates are referred to as “hard forks” because they introduce changes that make previous versions incompatible with newer ones.
What is Ethereum 2.0?
Ethereum 2.0 is a new version of the Ethereum blockchain that will be able to handle a higher transaction volume than Ethereum 1.0, as well as smart contracts and other elements that are currently in development.
Ethereum 2.0 aims to solve scalability issues faced by its current protocol; namely: high gas costs associated with transactions sent on its network, long confirmation times due to limited bandwidth capacity available between miners and clients who wish send/receive funds through them respectively – hampering throughput performance capabilities both up-stream (i) through congested channels or down stream (ii) when processing requests made by users from around world but particularly those living outside USA where demand tends toward maximum levels during peak hours (between 6 p m until 8 pm ET).
What Is the Next Ethereum?
Ethereum 2.0 is the next version of Ethereum. It’s not just the latest upgrade, it’s a complete overhaul of the system, and one that will help Ethereum achieve its ultimate goal: scalability on par with Visa or Mastercard.
Ethereum 2.0 uses sharding technology to split up network activity into smaller portions (called “shards”) and execute them in parallel across multiple nodes within the network. This means that as your transactions increase, so do your chances of having them processed faster.
RChain
RChain is a decentralized, cooperative, and global blockchain solution based on the Rho Calculus with proof-of-stake consensus. RChain was created by Greg Meredith. RChain is a new blockchain platform that will support, among other things, the security and scalability needed to run Web 3.
While other platforms become sluggish as more hardware is added, RChain’s highly concurrent execution speeds up as additional machines are brought online.
Polkadot
Polkadot is a multi-chain protocol that allows independent blockchains to exchange information and increase their interoperability. It’s being developed by the Web3 Foundation, which also oversees Ethereum development. The Polkadot team has released several papers describing its technology, but it’s still in an early stage of development.
Polkadot uses a relay chain to connect the chains together and provide security for them—the relay chain does not contain any user data itself. The Polkadot team has published two white papers outlining how this works: “Multichain Systems” and “The Relay Chain.”
In short, Polkadot will allow users to transfer tokens between different blockchains while maintaining privacy across many layers of encryption.
Cardano
Cardano is a decentralized public blockchain and cryptocurrency project that was founded in 2015 by Charles Hoskinson, who previously co founded Ethereum. At the time of writing, the market capitalization of Cardano’s native token, ADA, ranks 8th amongst all digital currencies.
Cardano is a smart contract platform that’s being built with several core principles in mind: security, scalability, and interoperability. The team behind Cardano believes that all blockchains should be able to share data securely without compromising their underlying values or principles; they see this as a necessary step towards making blockchain technology more useful for real-world applications.
There are several candidates attempting to take the mantle from Ethereum.
There are several candidates attempting to take the mantle from Ethereum, including RChain, Cardano, and Polkadot.
However, none have shown their potential to succeed on the scale of Ethereum 2.0—the major upgrade that will bring the network to its full potential.
Launched on September 15, 2022, the new version aims to address some of Ethereum’s most pressing problems, including scalability (which currently places a cap on the number of transactions that can be processed by a single node), privacy, and security.