A lot of interesting developments are on the horizon for Ethereum. Most people know there is an impending switch to proof-of-stake, which will occur through the Casper network upgrade. It seems Casper is headed in the right direction, with a new code base having been released for public peer review.
Another Milestone for Casper
It is evident that a lot of Ethereum enthusiasts are looking forward to the switch from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. While this will make all mining setups pretty much redundant, it is due time the generation of Ether is curbed. That may happen well before the 100 million ETH mark, although it remains a bit difficult to guesstimate how the timeline looks at this point. Rest assured the switch to Casper is happening, and it may come to fruition very soon.
With a new version of Casper being released to the public, a lot of valuable feedback can be collected quickly. It is not the final version of this upgrade, yet it is the first version which will be open to public peer review. It is important to have major developments like these thoroughly reviewed and vetted by third parties, as a fresh set of eyes can unveil overlooked issues.
Version 0.1.0 of Casper is now live on GitHub for anyone to check out. It is far from finalized, but it should give Ethereum-oriented service providers and DApp developers an idea of the technology with which they will be working in the future. It also makes it a lot easier for external auditors to track the contract and changes, which can only be considered a good thing.
All of this further confirms that the development of proof-of-stake is coming together nicely for Ethereum. With the developers having put in a lot of work behind the scenes over the past few months, now is the time to expose the general public to these developments and gather their feedback on these changes. It also shows there is a lot of momentum behind Casper right now. While no official timeline is in place right now, the project has been coming together rather quickly.
During the initial launch of Casper, a hybrid model combining PoW and PoS will be maintained. A later change to Casper will remove the mining component altogether. Switching to proof-of-stake is still considered somewhat controversial, as this technology has always been scrutinized by a lot of cryptocurrency experts. Even so, proof-of-stake has seen some major developments over the years, as various developers have made some much-needed changes. With Ethereum’s developers now displaying their skills, interesting things are bound to happen.
A public audit of such a groundbreaking development is more than warranted in this day and age. More often than not, altcoins introduce changes which do not work out well. Most of those issues could have been avoided by conducting a public audit, even though a lot of coin developers refuse to go that route. Ethereum is setting a good example in this regard, and it will be interesting to see how the public responds to this Casper release.
