Читать книгу Cryptocurrency All-in-One For Dummies онлайн

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The $18 million raised in the token sale gave the foundation the funds it needed to hire a large development team to build Ethereum. Ethereum Frontier, the first release of the Ethereum network, went live to the public in July 2015. It was a bare-bones software release that only the more technically savvy could use to build their applications.

Homestead, the current Ethereum software release, was made available in 2016. It’s much more user-friendly. Almost anyone can utilize the application template available on it. It has intuitive and easy-to-use interfaces and a large, devoted development community.

Metropolis is the next planned Ethereum release. The main difference will be that applications will be fully developed and well tested. It will also feature even easier-to-use applications and have a larger market appeal where even nontechnical people will feel comfortable using it.

Serenity is the last planned phase of Ethereum development. It’s where Ethereum will move from a proof of work (PoW) consensus (in which miners compete to create the next block) to a proof of stake (PoS) model, in which nodes are chosen pseudo-randomly with the possibility of being selected increasing based on their stake in the network. Their stake is measured by the amount of cryptocurrency in their possession. The main benefit of the change will be the reduction in the cost of energy associated with proof of work. This may make it more attractive for individuals to run nodes in the network, which would increase decentralization and increase security. Book 6, ssss1 further explains the PoW and PoS models.