Ethereum researcher Justin Drake has proposed a redesign of Ethereum’s consensus layer, suggesting a shift from the current Beacon Chain to a new “Beam Chain.”
At the Devcon event in Bangkok, Thailand, Drake argued that transitioning to a Beam Chain could bring Ethereum “much closer to the final design” envisioned for the network.
During the presentation, the Ethereum researcher tried to convince the audience that redesigning the consensus layer may not be so crazy. Drake said:
“I want to take what may sound like a totally crazy idea and convince you that, actually, it may not be so crazy that it might be a reasonable proposal to put on the table to completely redesign the consensus layer.”
Drake said that Ethereum’s Beacon Chain is “kind of old” and was “frozen” five years ago. “In those five years, so much has happened,” he added.
The researcher said that the community has a much better understanding of concepts like maximal extractable value (MEV), and the industry has mechanisms that mitigate this systemic problem for public blockchains.
Drake also explained that in terms of technology, Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge (zk-SNARKS) have become faster, and zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (zkEVMs) have made their debut.
Reducing the staking requirement from 32 to 1 ETH
Drake’s roadmap for the consensus layer includes potential changes to block production, staking and cryptography.
According to Drake, Ethereum researchers have come to the consensus that the current issuance curve of the network may be “broken.” Drake said that this presents an opportunity to improve the health of the blockchain and long-term outcomes by reducing the amount of Ether (ETH) required to become a validator.
“Under the staking bucket is this idea of dramatically reducing the total amount of ETH to become a validator from 32 if down to just 1 ETH,” Drake said.
While the researcher proposed the roadmap, he also clarified that this was a proposal, not an official roadmap. “This is my proposal, and the proposal will only go forward if there is rough consensus with it going forward,” he explained.
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ETH 3.0 not an “appropriate” nickname
Since Drake teased his presentation on X, the community speculated about the proposal’s contents, with “ETH 3.0” floating around social media. However, the researcher believes the name would not be appropriate for the proposal as it only addresses the consensus layer.
“In my opinion, the moniker Ethereum 3.0 is not appropriate. And the reason is that the beam chain is only about the consensus layer. It’s not about all of the layer 1, it’s just the consensus layer,” he explained.
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