Ethereum is on the rise after the cryptocurrency’s founder Vitalik Buterin signaled a switch to so-called proof-of-stake is “no longer so far away,” which tops off an extremely strong week for ethereum, beginning with the announcement of an enterprise version of the Ethereum blockchain created by U.S. bank JP Morgan Chase.
Buterin outlined the path to Ethereum 2.0, which he now calls Serenity, while speaking at a conference in Prague. Serenity is designed to solve ethereum’s scalability issues, which is something that created challenges for several major currencies in the past.
Over the last 24 hours, ethereum’s price has increased by four percent, adding roughly 8 percent over the last week, while trade was at highs of $210 yesterday. It currently handles nearly 15 transactions per second and holds the potential to increase under proof-of-stake.
Forbes reports that ethereum currently works on a proof-of-work algorithm, which is computing power-intensive and becomes more so as the system develops. Meaning the more tokens a node owns; the more chances it has of beating competition to verify the next block.
“Launch is basically the milestone that we’ve all been waiting for, that we’ve been working toward for the last four to five years, and a milestone which is really no longer so far away,” Buterin told DevCon 4 conference attendees – though he hasn’t been specific regarding a date.
The weekend boost in price for ethereum follows a strong week for its tradable token, ether. JP Morgan Chase announced it created an enterprise version of the ethereum blockchain – known as Quorum – which allows for the operation of smart contracts.
“There are people outside our firm using Quorum to tokenise gold, for instance. They wrap a gold bar into a tamper-proof case electronically tagged, and they can track the gold bar from the mine to end point – with the use case being, if you know it’s a socially responsible mine, someone will be willing to pay a higher spread on that gold versus if you don’t know where it comes from. Diamonds is another example,” JP Morgan’s New York-based head of blockchain initiatives, Umar Farooq told Financial Review.
