The Development and Upgrade Path of Ethereum

Introduction

Recently, project teams have frequently consulted on which public blockchain to deploy, the performance differences between various public blockchains, the ecological layout, and the platform traffic, as well as the impact on the project in both the short and long term. This year, several popular public blockchain projects have launched tokens, including Arbitrium, Sui, and the long-awaited zkSync, leading to a strong demand for the dissemination and analysis of basic knowledge about public blockchains. We have specifically formed a public blockchain research group to conduct a comprehensive review of the currently active and highly regarded public blockchains in the market. We will analyze these public blockchains from the perspectives of GameFi project teams and users, focusing on their performance levels, friendliness, and support for GameFi projects.

The preliminary plan is to write 4 research papers, with the main content distributed as follows:

The first article extends from the development history of Ethereum, the blockchain gaming ecosystem, and the existing issues, to the upgrade roadmap of Ethereum 2.0.

The second article delves into the Optimistic Rollup track, analyzing the basic technical routes of the OP series and the differences among several representative projects such as (Arbitrium, Optimism, and opBNB in terms of technology, market, and support for blockchain games.

The third article focuses on analyzing the technology of the zk Rollup track, as well as relevant information about representative projects such as zkSync, StarkNet, Polygon zkEVM, Linea, and Scroll.

The fourth article analyzes the technical characteristics, chain game ecology, and technical support of other popular Layer 1 public chains, such as Solana, Aptos, Sui, Near, and Avalanche.

I believe that through the above systematic analysis, both project parties and users will have a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the mainstream public chains in today's market, and it can also provide a solid theoretical basis for project deployment, investment, and other related decisions based on different public chains.

![GameFi Public Chain Research Series Part One: The Development and Upgrade Path of Ethereum])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-920a67c4d117f884ed25cc8c4f03231c.webp(

Introduction

In the wave of the digital age, Ethereum shines like a brilliant star at the pinnacle of the blockchain world. Since its inception, Ethereum has been at the forefront of blockchain and smart contract technology, continuously creating new historical chapters. As a pioneer of blockchain gaming, Ethereum has been leading the development of the GameFi sector. We will guide you through the development and upgrade path of Ethereum, exploring how this ecosystem has evolved from a startup project into the world's most important public chain ecosystem.

1. The Origin and Development History of Ethereum

Ethereum has been an exciting story filled with challenges, innovation, and struggle since its very first day of existence.

At the end of 2013, Vitalik Buterin released the Ethereum white paper, which inherited some design concepts from Bitcoin while also opening a new chapter in blockchain development. Subsequently, in 2014, Ethereum launched its ICO, raising approximately $18 million worth of Bitcoin in just 42 days, shocking the entire blockchain community.

On July 30, 2015, Ethereum successfully launched its first version Frontier) frontiers(, and by the end of the year, it proposed a standard that would have a profound impact on the industry - ERC20.

However, not long after, 2016 became the most turbulent year for Ethereum. In March 2016, Ethereum launched the Homestead upgrade, a major network upgrade. This upgrade aimed to improve the stability and security of Ethereum, marking its entry into a more mature phase. The Homestead upgrade enhanced Ethereum's virtual machine, smart contract development tools, and network protocols, attracting more developers and businesses to participate. However, good times did not last long. Between May and June 2016, the Ethereum community experienced a significant crisis known as The DAO incident. The DAO was a decentralized autonomous organization, and its smart contract had vulnerabilities that allowed attackers to steal a large amount of Ether. This incident sparked a division in the community, with one side advocating for a hard fork to recover the stolen Ether, while the other insisted on the principle of not modifying the blockchain. Ultimately, a hard fork occurred, resulting in the split of Ethereum into two different blockchains: Ethereum )ETH( and Ethereum Classic )ETC(. Ethereum Classic adhered to the principle of not interfering with the code and continued to maintain the integrity of the Ethereum genesis block.

If 2016 marked the evolution of Ethereum from a startup project to a more mature and complex blockchain platform, then 2017 was the true prosperous moment for Ethereum. In early 2017, the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance)EEA( was established to promote the application of the Ethereum blockchain in the enterprise sector. The alliance attracted many well-known companies, including Microsoft, IBM, Intel, and others, to jointly research and develop Ethereum technology.

In October 2017, Ethereum completed the first phase of the Metropolis upgrade, known as "Metropolis Byzantium." This upgrade introduced a series of improvements, including better privacy protection, enhanced smart contract security, and reduced transaction costs. Metropolis Byzantium further strengthened the functionality of Ethereum, paving the way for future development.

With the mainnet upgrade, the ICO boom swept across the entire blockchain world. In 2017, Ethereum's smart contract platform became the first choice for many new projects, and numerous new cryptocurrencies and blockchain projects raised funds through ICOs. This craze led to a rapid increase in the price of Ethereum, attracting a large number of investors and developers. The price of Ethereum rose from a few dollars at the beginning of 2017 to hundreds of dollars by the end of the year. This garnered global attention, making Ethereum the undisputed second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. However, on the flip side of the boom, the surge in transactions and smart contracts brought about increasingly severe transaction congestion and high gas fees on Ethereum. This led the Ethereum community to focus on issues of network scalability and performance improvement, laying the groundwork for Ethereum's continued upgrades in the future.

By 2018, Ethereum faced severe challenges. In early 2018, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies underwent a massive price collapse, leading to a sharp decline in Ethereum's price. This triggered market volatility and investor concerns, reflecting the instability of the crypto market. During the crypto winter, Ethereum's upgrades did not cease; significant progress was made in the development of Ethereum 2.0, which established a general roadmap for switching from Proof of Work )PoW( to Proof of Stake )PoS( to improve scalability and energy efficiency. At the same time, due to the increase in trading volume, the Ethereum network continued to face congestion and high transaction fees in 2018. This led to increased attention on network performance and scalability, sparking numerous discussions about solutions to these issues.

In 2018, regulatory agencies around the world began to implement stricter regulations on cryptocurrencies and ICOs. This led to some ICO projects being investigated and sanctioned, and the crypto industry started to pay attention to legal compliance issues. Despite market fluctuations, 2018 witnessed the rise of the decentralized finance ) DeFi ( ecosystem. DeFi projects rapidly developed on Ethereum, including decentralized exchanges, lending platforms, and stablecoins, bringing new opportunities and innovations to the Ethereum ecosystem.

2019 was a year of innovation for Ethereum. The Ethereum 2.0 project made significant progress in 2019, including the launch of the Beacon Chain, marking Ethereum's gradual move towards a more scalable and energy-efficient network. 2019 was also a year of explosive growth for the DeFi ecosystem. A large number of DeFi projects emerged on Ethereum, including lending platforms, decentralized exchanges, and stablecoins. These projects attracted billions of dollars in capital, bringing decentralized innovation to the financial sector.

With the rise of DeFi, regulators have started to pay attention to the compliance of Ethereum and other blockchain projects. This has led to some projects being required to take measures to comply with laws and regulations, which has also sparked discussions about balancing decentralization and compliance. Stablecoins on Ethereum, such as USDT, DAI, and USDC, have become important assets in the crypto world, providing stability and liquidity for crypto trading. 2019 also witnessed the rise of blockchain games, with some games on Ethereum beginning to attract a large number of users. These games typically use NFTs) non-fungible tokens( to give players true ownership and interoperability.

From its inception, through its maturation, to reaching its peak, Ethereum has undergone continuous transformations and challenges, fully demonstrating its immense potential as a smart contract platform. From the initial Homestead upgrade to hard forks, from the frenzy of ICOs to increased regulation, and the preliminary rise of DeFi and blockchain games, the Ethereum community has continuously worked to promote technological advancement, creating infinite possibilities for the future of blockchain. Next, we will elaborate on the development history of blockchain games on Ethereum.

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2. The Rise of On-Chain Games on Ethereum

To outline the development history of blockchain games, the Ethereum ecosystem is paramount. Since 2017, Ethereum has flourished with a myriad of notable blockchain games. We have selected a few representative projects to discuss their development history and the issues they face.

When it comes to the ancestor of blockchain games, most people would think of CryptoKitties from 2017. Although it is not strictly the first blockchain game, it is indeed the first phenomenon-level game that became popular on Ethereum and was recognized by most people. It is a game based on collecting and breeding digital cats, which first integrated ERC-721, becoming one of the earliest NFT projects, with each digital cat being a unique NFT. The adoption, breeding, and trading of these cats successfully ignited FOMO sentiment in the crypto circle, with a single CryptoKitty fetching prices up to a million, which left most ordinary players stunned. The success of CryptoKitties sparked a significant interest in NFTs among many players and project teams. Due to the game's popularity, trading congestion and high fees became the norm, exposing the scalability issues of the Ethereum network.

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In 2018, Gods Unchained came into everyone's view. It is a "Hearthstone"-style card game on Ethereum, where players can collect, trade, and battle with cards of different attributes. The game ensures the security of cards by using NFTs on Ethereum, leading to a deep honeymoon period between blockchain games and card games, and ushering in an era where everything can be "Fi". However, due to the limitations of the Ethereum network, the game still suffers from transaction delays and high fees during peak times.

The project that truly reached the peak of chain games in the previous wave is undoubtedly Axie Infinity. Axie is a collection and battle game based on Ethereum, where players can collect, breed, and trade virtual creatures called Axie to earn tokens. When it was launched in 2018, it remained lukewarm due to the deep bear market, until the bull market in 2021 led to its rapid rise, greatly enhancing the game's playability and players' enthusiasm, and sparking a new wave of 'P2E' chain game craze, giving birth to a large number of gaming guilds and gold farming studios. At its peak, Axie generated over $300 million in monthly revenue, surpassing Honor of Kings to become the world's most profitable game. The rise of the P2E model also signifies the true arrival of the GameFi era, promoting the development and trading of blockchain-based game assets through the DeFi + NFT model. Besides Axie Infinity, a batch of similar model games has also emerged on the market, such as Alien Worlds, Cryptoblades, Sorare, Zed Run, etc. However, due to the congestion of the Ethereum network and high transaction fees, the entry barrier and transaction costs of the games are too high, limiting the participation of many players.

Another major branch of chain games is the so-called "metaverse" faction, represented by Sandbox and Decentraland, which uses metaverse elements and land sales as the main economic model.