Prominent Ethereum developers are advising their clients and the cryptocurrency industry to avoid using the name “Eth2” to characterise the next phase of the network’s roadmap. The Ethereum core team announced on the Ethereum Foundation’s blog on January 24 that the designations Eth1 and Eth2 were just being phased out. The shift away from this nomenclature Eth1 and Eth2 has already been acknowledged by core developers, and the replacement nomenclature for the two are ‘execution layer’ and ‘consensus layer,’ respectively.
According to the developers, ‘Eth2’ has become an inaccurate representation of Ethereum’s plan. The majority of regular crypto users would presume that Eth2 is just the next phase of that plan, which features proof-of-stake.
The gradual launch of Eth2 would take many years to completely deploy, but with the introduction of Beacon Chain and the expected merge deployment, the term no longer applies because the network is hybrid of Eth1 and Eth2.
The Ethereum.org team stated that deleting the Eth2 term will also help to clear up misunderstanding caused by some staking companies incorrectly labelling staked ETH as ETH2 coins. Furthermore, it may prevent fraudulent actors from proposing to exchange ETH for fake ETH2. The team came to the conclusion that the rebranding and name change had no impact on the development roadmap.
