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Coinbase adds ETH2 ahead of key upgrade this week

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08
Dec
  • The ETH2 coin listed on Coinbase will mirror the original Ether (ETH) token at least up to June 2022.
  • This comes just ahead of the Arrow Glacier update that would delay the difficulty bomb on Etheruem.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase seems to be preparing for a key upgrade on the Ethereum blockchain coming up this week on December 10. The crypto exchange has added a mirrored version ETH2 of the Ethereum blockchain’s native cryptocurrency Ether (ETH).

This new version of Ether just tracks the original Ether market data synchronously. As you can see in the below tweet, the cost of purchasing ETH2 is the same as that of the ETH crypto. Interestingly, the two trading volumes, market cap, circulating supply and price turn out to be the same.

However, unlike the original ETH, the new ETH2 crypto shows no trading activity. It seems that the newer version will just merely track the ETH market data at least up to mid-2022. It also shows that Coinbase is making all the early preparations for Ethereum 2.0 upgrade. Thus, ETH2 seems to be posing as the native cryptocurrency of the ongoing update of the Ethereum blockchain.

Interestingly, the recent ETH 2 listing on Coinbase happens just before the upcoming upgrade “Arrow Glacier” which will further delay the difficulty bomb.

Arrow Glacier update before Ethereum 2.0

The upcoming Arrow Glacier update on Ethereum will delay the difficulty bomb which would make it difficult for people to mine Ether. However, if the BOMB is triggered, it will slow down the Ethereum blockchain as far as it remains proof-of-work.

One of Ethereum’s core developers – Tim Beiko – said that the Arrow Glacier upgrade could probably be the last upgrade before Ethereum 2.0 goes live by June 2022. The Ethereum 2.0 will bring a significant change to the network design. Firstly, this includes a full-scale transition from the Proof-of-Work (PoW) to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain.

Related: Vitalik Buterin presents a “plausible roadmap” to Ethereum scalability before moving to ETH 2.0

In the existing PoW Ethereum network, nodes have to validate each transaction to maintain the Ethereum public ledger. However, the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade will introduce “sharding”. This will divide the entire network into small segments dubbed “shards”. Later, it will randomly assign the nodes to each shard.

This will remove the need for each node to scan the entire chain while improving the speeds and lowering the costs required to maintain the network. These individual shards will share the transaction details with the Beacon Chain, which is the backbone of Ethereum 2.0.

ETH2 won’t be a new crypto

The Beacon Chain will validate transactions on each shard while assisting the Ethereum 2.0 network in reaching consensus. It will detect dishonest validators and further initiate penalties by removing a part of the validator’s stake from circulation.

The current ETH token will serve as a staking token in the Ethereum 2.0 PoS design. Staking of ETH will allow validators to participate in a network consensus and thus receive block rewards.

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