Ethereum 2.0 Will Not Attract Wider Mainstream Adoption

Ethereum might be the darling of the blockchain world, but, likely, Ethereum 2.0 (Eth2) will not attract wider mainstream adoption. The long-awaited changes are not expected to solve the most important issues that are plaguing are the network.

One core issue is that Ethereum currently runs on a proof-of-work (PoW) system that enables only up to 15 transactions per second. Its PoW system is widely regarded as impractical for building any expansive decentralized finance, or DeFi, ecosystem. Hence, gas fees are very high on Ethereum.

Another issue is poor user experience (UX) design, as most user interfaces are not intuitive. They also lack sufficient educational resources to give users the know-how to use the platform.

Customers are expected to set transaction fees in gas price as well as gas limits for transaction processing. However, many people in the U.S. don’t understand or know how to invest in cryptocurrencies.

Ethereum 2.0 and various challenges

The purpose of Ethereum 2.0 is to deal with these long-lasting issues. Ethereum’s supervisors announced the launch of Eth2 as a series of upgrades over its current model, which would include switching to proof-of-stake (PoS) and sharding. The PoS concept states that people can mine blocks and validate according to how many coins they hold. The Ethereum Foundation expects to move to the PoS system by the end of 2021.

It would take more time to implement sharding, according to Ethereum’s website. Sharding is the process of splitting up a database horizontally to spread the load. That helps to reduce network congestion and helps to increase transactions per second.

However, as stated above, it won’t be easy for Ethereum to attract new users. It took time to develop Eth2 and many users are wondering when the actual full upgrades will happen. The purpose of the PoS system is to reduce mining costs. But to increase the network throughput, it is necessary to increase block time and/or decrease block sizes. Moreover, sharding only helps applications that can run independently from one another and only need to be synced every once in a while. Due to DeFi’s nature, the sharding-style processing would need to run transactions through a relay chain and thus slow down the entire process.

The hype regarding Eth2 may just turn out to be hot air. Likely, the Eth2 will not attract wider mainstream adoption. It is not clear if the changes will be able to deliver the promises of the Ethereum Foundation’s leaders.