Proposed Ethereum Roadmap Would Activate Its Biggest Upgrades Together

The developer team behind ethereum is considering possible changes to a planned rollout of new technology upgrades.

Rather than releasing sharding and Casper separately, Buterin said, new advancements in research might enable both upgrades to activate together.

Casper, ethereum's long-planned consensus algorithm proof-of-stake, promises to be more energy efficient and egalitarian than its current proof-of-work system, while sharding could hold the keys to scaling the system to a massive number of transactions.

"The development of the one system will be much more directionally en route to what we expect the final later stage sharding system to look like," Buterin said.

Plus, by bringing the first version of Casper onto a shard, the deposit required to participate in securing the network will be reduced significantly, from 1,500 ETH, Buterin's most recent estimate, to 32 ETH. Due to this lowered figure, Buterin said, "Regular individuals participating in staking directly becomes much more viable." Buterin also said that the new model allows Casper to go live without disturbing the ethereum blockchain itself.

"The Casper component is somewhat more separate from the main chain, that means it can be developed less intrusively in some ways, it can be developed as a separate chain and can have its own rules," Buterin said, "There's a much clearer wall between those systems."

Such a system would allow for an "Animosity" between nodes on Casper and sharding, increasing the security of both systems.

"You can't be a casper validator without also being a sharding validator," Drake said.

The developer continued to state that there are advantages to bridging the Casper research team and the sharding team together.

"In general, there will be more unity between Casper and sharding, and the teams lobbying these projects. I think that's good, there will be more networks effects there."