An amalgamation of Beacon Chain with original Ethereum PoW

Blockchains play a vital role in the complete process of the crypto trade or in other words, we can say, that they are the spine on which all the trading activities relating to the crypto are dependent. So, here we are going to elaborate on one blockchain.

How to define Beacon Chain- a coordination network of the new mechanism or the one that gave birth to the Proof-of-stake to the Ethereum ecosystem?

This is what we are going to have further discussion on through this read. To be very clear, the concept of this chain is not clear to many of us so, we will start the journey by first knowing the meaning of it followed by its prime functions.

The learning passage is going to be quite long, so just get ready for it.

Quick exordium of the Beacon Chain

Merged with the Ethereum Proof-of-Work chain, the traces of the Beacon Chain can be found back on December 01, 2020. It is believed that with its introduction the proof-of-stake was launched into the Ethereum ecosystem. Further, the credit for introducing the consensus logic and block gossip protocol, which is now governed and secured by Ethereum also goes to this chain.

With the passage of time, in September 2022 it got merged with the original proof-of-work. While finding information relating to this chain, you might have come across an event that took place “The Merge”.

Do you know what exactly this event is all about?

Well, if you have read only the surface information about this event then why don’t you gather a complete insight into this event with us?

To know the intact details briefly about this event check out the upcoming part of this read.

The Merge- An event to unify blockchains

For marking an end to the proof-of-work and embarking on the proof-of-work on Ethereum requires certain commands to be given to the Beacon Chain. The set of instructions includes:

• Accepting transactions from the authentic Ethereum chain
• Bundling the accepted transactions into the blocks,
• Organizing the bundled transactions into a blockchain by utilizing the proof-of-stake based on the consensus mechanism

As a consequence of the above-given instructions, the clients of the original Ethereum restrict their mining, block propagation, and consensus logic. After modifying the listed actions they give the authority to govern/handle all these actions to the Beacon chain. And, this event came to be popularly known as “The Merge” as there were no longer two blockchains. There is just a single proof-of-stake Ethereum chain.

What’s the key function of this chain?

There is not a single function that is to be performed by this chain rather there are multiple functions that are to be performed and they are:

• Handling/Managing validators and their stakes
• Nominating the block proposer for each Shard at each step
• Arranging validators into committees to vote on the proposed blocks
• Applying the rule of consensus
• Determining the rewards and penalties of the validators

The blessings of the Beacon Chain

The emergence of something leaves behind some impacts. The resulting impacts can be good or bad. This varies on how well the emergence of that particular thing has performed in its field. Talking of this chain, it also left an impact which we are going to summarize under:

• The introduction of staking
• And, the emergence of shard chains

Let’s have a brief look at each of them sequentially.

Staking: If you are having an understanding about miming then to learn the concept of staking is as easy as a pie. It is just that the staking serves a similar purpose as that of mining but in a different manner. Mining involves large up-front costs in the form of powerful hardware and energy consumption, which eventually results in large economies of scale and promotes centralization.

In practice, staking involves locking up the ETH with the objective to activate validator software. If you are opting to stake the mentioned crypto asset then you will be required to run software that builds and validates new blocks in the chain. However, mining never asks to lock the funds.

The emergence of Shard Chains: After the integration of the proof-of-stake into the Ethereum Manniet, the Beacon Chain then plans and takes actions to create Shard chains. Now, you might be thinking of what is the need for introducing the Shard Chains.

Or, what is the purpose of the Shard chains?

To define it in a layman’s language, Shard chains serve the purpose of allocating the load of the network by breaking down or splitting the main Ethereum network into smaller blockchains so that it becomes quite easy to manage.

And, what is the benefit of doing apart from splitting the load?

The other perks of taking this action are that it helps in improving the transaction speed of Ethereum and cutting down the transaction fees. As a whole, it helps in processing transactions faster and that too at lower fees.

Areas where Beacon Chain doesn’t contribute

No doubt, it has contributed in several areas and has even worked on certain areas to improve the current working mechanism and make the intact process efficient along with making the transactions speedy.

But, as every aspect has two sides, so does it.

There are a few areas where Beacon Chain hasn’t contributed or participated. The discovered grounds where this chain lacks is while running the smart contracts. And, to serve this purpose Shard chains were introduced.

Final Verdict

In a nutshell, Beacon Chain can be defined as the backbone on which the absolute working of Ethereum 2.0 is dependent. Through the crafted document, you might be able to portray a rough idea of the working of this blockchain, its emergence, impacts, and others. Further, it gave birth to the Consensus layer or Consensus engine that took the role of PoW mining on Ethereum and brought several improvements in the current mechanism.