The Development and Upgrade Path of Ethereum: From Innovation to Transformation

Ethereum, as a leader in blockchain and smart contract technology, has been at the forefront of industry development since its inception. This article will take you through the development history of Ethereum, explore its important position in the GameFi sector, and delve into the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade roadmap.

1. The Origin and Development History of Ethereum

At the end of 2013, Vitalik Buterin released the Ethereum white paper, marking the beginning of a new chapter in blockchain development. In 2014, it launched an ICO, raising approximately 18 million US dollars in Bitcoin. In July 2015, the first version, Frontier, was released, and the ERC20 standard was proposed.

2016 was a turbulent year for Ethereum. The Homestead upgrade was launched in March, improving stability and security. The DAO incident occurred in May-June, leading to a hard fork that split into Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC).

The EEA alliance was established in early 2017, attracting numerous enterprises to participate. In October, the first phase of the Metropolis upgrade was completed. That same year, the ICO boom swept through, causing Ethereum prices to soar, but it also exposed network congestion issues.

At the beginning of 2018, cryptocurrency prices crashed, and the price of Ethereum plummeted. In the same year, it was determined to transition from PoW to PoS. The DeFi ecosystem began to rise.

In 2019, the Ethereum 2.0 project made significant progress. The DeFi ecosystem exploded, attracting a large influx of funds. Stablecoins and blockchain games also began to emerge.

2. The Rise of On-Chain Games on Ethereum

In 2017, CryptoKitties ignited the market as the first phenomenal blockchain game, also exposing the scalability issues of Ethereum.

In 2018, Gods Unchained was launched, deeply integrating blockchain games with card games.

In 2021, Axie Infinity rose to prominence, driving the popularity of the P2E model, but high costs limited player participation.

As Decentraland and other metaverse games rise, insufficient optimization affects the experience.

Ethereum blockchain games have pioneered true ownership of game assets and economic ecosystems, but face challenges such as scalability and high fees.

3. Ethereum 2.0 Upgrade

Ethereum 2.0 aims to address issues such as high fees and congestion, respond to the challenges posed by competing public chains, and meet users' new demands for security and privacy.

The main content includes:

• Shard Chain: Improve Scalability
• Proof of Stake ( PoS ): Increase decentralization level
• Beacon Chain and Casper mechanism: Enhance security

The upgrade roadmap consists of six stages:

1. The Merge: Transition to PoS
2. The Surge: Improving Scalability through Sharding
3. The Scourge: Reduce MEV Centralization
4. The Verge: Simplified Block Validation
5. The Purge: Clean up historical data burden
6. The Splurge: Other Miscellaneous Upgrades

The upgrade will improve performance, security, and innovation capabilities, but also faces challenges such as technical and ecological compatibility.

Ethereum 2.0 is an important milestone, and it will continue to develop in the future. Layer 2 solutions will also inject new momentum into the ecosystem.