Add serenity doc; Move info from readme/onboarding into serenity doc;
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docs/Serenity.md
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# Ethereum Serenity
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This document aims at providing a high level understanding of Ethereum and the
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Serenity phase of the Ethereum roadmap.
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## The Blockchain
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A blockchain can be seen as a decentralized, distributed ledger. The ledger of
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transactions is replicated onto all nodes in the network. When a transaction
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occurs, it is first propagated to the nodes. Once the nodes receive the
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transaction, and verifies the correctness, the nodes attempt to batch the
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transactions into a block and append the block to the ledger. Once the ledger
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has been successfully appended onto, they propagate the block to the network.
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If accepted, this block now becomes the latest block in the chain. If two people
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propose a block at the same time, the one canonical blockchain forks. At this
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point it must be resolved, and each system has it's own way of resolving these
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forks.
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<center>Figure 1. Example blockchain with a resolved fork.</center>
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<br>
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The idea of the blockchain was first proposed in the seminal [Bitcoin
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whitepaper](https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf) by Satoshi Nakamoto. Since then, a
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vast number of updates and blockchains have taken shape providing different
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functionality or properties to the original blockchain.
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## What is Ethereum?
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Ethereum is an open blockchain protocol, allowing for the building and use of
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decentralized applications that run on blockchain technology. Ethereum was one
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of the initial platforms providing turing-complete code to be run on the
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blockchain, allowing for conditional payments to occur through the use of this
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code. Since then, Ethereum has advanced to allow for a number of Decentralized
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Applications (DApps) to be developed and run completely with the blockchain as
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the backbone.
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General Ethereum Introduction:
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* [What is Ethereum](http://ethdocs.org/en/latest/introduction/what-is-ethereum.html)
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* [Ethereum Introduction](https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Ethereum-introduction)
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### Proof-of-Work and the current state of Ethereum.
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Currently, Ethereum is based on the Proof-of-Work model, a Sybil resilient
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mechanism to allow nodes to propose blocks to the network. Although it provides
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properties that allow the blockchain to operate in an open, public
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(permissionless) network, it faces it's challenges and as a result impacts
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the operation of the blockchain.
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The main goals to advance Ethereum is to (1) increase the scalability and
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overall transaction processing power of the Ethereum world computer and (2)
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find a suitable replacement for Proof-of-Work that still provides the necessary
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properties that we need.
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* [Proof-of-Work in Cryptocurrencies: an accessible introduction](https://blog.sigmaprime.io/what-is-proof-of-work.html)
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## Serenity
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Ethereum Serenity refers to a new blockchain system currently under development
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by the Ethereum Foundation and the Ethereum community.
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As part of the original Ethereum roadmap
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[\[1\]](https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/03/03/ethereum-launch-process/)
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[\[2\]](http://ethdocs.org/en/latest/introduction/the-homestead-release.html),
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the Proof-of-Stake integration falls under **Release Step 4: *Serenity***. With
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this, a number of changes are to be made to the current Ethereum protocol to
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incorporate some of the new Proof-of-Stake mechanisms as well as improve on
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some of the hindrances faced by the current Proof-of-Work chain.
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To now advance the current Ethereum, the decision is made to move to a sharded
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Beacon chain structure where multiple shard-chains will be operating and
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interacting with a central beacon chain.The Serenity blockchain consists of
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1,025 proof-of-stake blockchains. This includes the "beacon chain" and 1,024
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"shard chains".
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Ethereum Serenity is also known as "Ethereum 2.0" and "Shasper". We prefer
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Serenity as it more accurately reflects the established Ethereum roadmap (plus
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we think it's a nice name).
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(Be mindful, the specifications change occasionally, so check these to keep up
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to date)
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* Current Specifications:
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* [Danny Ryan's "State of the Spec"](https://notes.ethereum.org/s/BJEZWNoyE) (A nice summary of the current specifications)
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* [Ethereum Serenity - Phase 0: Beacon Chain Spec](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/blob/master/specs/core/0_beacon-chain.md)
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* [Ethereum Serenity - Phase 1: Sharded Data Chains](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/blob/master/specs/core/1_shard-data-chains.md)
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* [Beacon Chain - Vitalik Buterin and Justin Drake explain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAywmwGToUI)
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* Understanding Sharding:
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* [Prysmatic Labs: Sharding Explained](https://medium.com/prysmatic-labs/how-to-scale-ethereum-sharding-explained-ba2e283b7fce)
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* Other relevant resources
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* [Proof of Stake - Casper FFG](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ3IqLDf-oo)
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* [Justin Drake VDF Devcon4 Talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqL_cMlPjOI)
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### Beacon Chain
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The concept of a beacon chain differs from existing blockchains, such as
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Bitcoin and Ethereum, in that it doesn't process transactions per se. Instead,
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it maintains a set of bonded (staked) validators and coordinates these to
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provide services to a static set of *sub-blockchains* (i.e. shards). Each of
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these shard blockchains processes normal transactions (e.g. "Transfer 5 ETH
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from A to B") in parallel whilst deferring consensus mechanisms to the beacon
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chain.
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Major services provided by the beacon chain to its shards include the following:
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- A source of entropy, likely using a [RANDAO + VDF
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scheme](https://ethresear.ch/t/minimal-vdf-randomness-beacon/3566).
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- Validator management, including:
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- Inducting and ejecting validators.
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- Assigning randomly-shuffled subsets of validators to particular shards.
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- Penalizing and rewarding validators.
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- Proof-of-stake consensus for shard chain blocks.
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### Shard Chains
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Shards are analogous to CPU cores - they're a resource where transactions can
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execute in series (one-after-another). Presently, Ethereum is single-core and
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can only _fully_ process one transaction at a time. Sharding allows processing
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of multiple transactions simultaneously, greatly increasing the per-second
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transaction capacity of Ethereum.
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Each shard uses a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and shares its validators
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(stakers) with other shards. The beacon chain rotates validators
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pseudo-randomly between different shards. Shards will likely be the basis of
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layer-2 transaction processing schemes, however, that is not in scope of this
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discussion.
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### The Proof-of-Work Chain
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The present-Ethereum proof-of-work (PoW) chain will host a smart contract that
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enables accounts to deposit 32 ETH, a BLS public key, and some [other
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parameters](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/blob/master/specs/casper_sharding_v2.1.md#pow-chain-changes),
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allowing them to become beacon chain validators. Each beacon chain will
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reference a PoW block hash allowing PoW clients to use the beacon chain as a
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source of [Casper FFG finality](https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.09437), if desired.
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It is a requirement that ETH can move freely between shard chains, as well as between
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Serenity and present-Ethereum blockchains. The exact mechanics of these transfers remain
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an active topic of research and their details are yet to be confirmed.
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## Serenity Progress
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Ethereum Serenity is not fully specified and a working implementation does not
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yet exist. Some teams have demos available which indicate progress, but do not
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constitute a complete product. We look forward to providing user functionality
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once we are ready to provide a minimum-viable user experience.
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The work-in-progress specifications live in the
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[ethereum/eth2.0-specs](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs) repository.
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There is active discussion about the specification in the
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[ethereum/sharding](https://gitter.im/ethereum/sharding) gitter channel. A
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proof-of-concept implementation in Python is available at
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[ethereum/beacon_chain](https://github.com/ethereum/beacon_chain).
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Presently, the specification focuses almost exclusively on the beacon chain,
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as it is the focus of current development efforts. Progress on shard chain
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specification will soon follow.
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