Years in the making, Ethereum 2.0 is the implementation phase of a series of upgrades predominantly intended to help scale Ethereum, while adding improvements to security. This major upgrade will take ETH from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. This means moving away from the old mining system, in which people mine cryptocurrency with hardware like GPUs, and towards a system where people can mine with staking software and their existing cryptocurrency holdings. This upgrade will come in three main phases: The Beacon Chain – launched 1 December 2020 Sharding – expected in 2021 Docking – expected in 2022 The Ethereum Beacon Chain brings proof of stake to the Ethereum network. It’s essentially a separate proof of stake network inside the “old” Ethereum blockchain (Eth1). This allowed users to begin staking their ETH in a smart contract destined for ETH 2.0. During the sharding phase upgrade, ETH 2.0 will be split into 64 shards. These shards will work in conjunction with the Beacon Chain. When implemented, the most visible upgrade will be improved network throughput. Sharding will also reduce the computational load, allowing more lightweight devices such as laptops or phones to run Ethereum clients. Beyond making Ethereum more generally portable and accessible, this will also reduce the network’s reliance on intermediaries and hosting services, contributing to more effective decentralisation. The third and final phase, anticipated for 2022, will be docking, when the Beacon Chain and Eth1 are merged together. Essentially, the Beacon Chain will become the “real” Ethereum blockchain, while Eth1 becomes another shard. At this stage Ethereum will be a fully-fledged high-scalability proof stake blockchain. Mining will no longer be required at this point, so it’s expected that miners will abandon their machines and reinvest in more cost-effective avenue of staking.