GlossaryAdvanced
Beacon Chain
Ethereum's Proof-of-Stake consensus layer, which ran in parallel to the original execution chain before the two merged.
The Beacon Chain was Ethereum's Proof-of-Stake consensus layer, launched in December 2020 and run in parallel to Ethereum's original Proof-of-Work execution chain, coordinating validators and staking before the two chains combined.
The Merge (see Kaavon's "The Ethereum Merge and Proof of Stake" guide) joined the Beacon Chain's consensus mechanism with Ethereum's existing execution environment, after which the terms "consensus layer" and "execution layer" became the standard way to refer to these two halves of Ethereum's architecture going forward.
Examples
- The Beacon Chain ran in parallel to Ethereum's original chain for nearly two years before the Merge actually joined the two together.
- The Beacon Chain introduced Ethereum's Proof-of-Stake validator set well before the Merge switched the network's actual consensus mechanism over to it.