Each network version gets a name (id). Here is an overview.
Olympic(0) is also regularly referred to as Ethereum 0.9; it launched early 2015 and was the first public Testnet. Deprecated in mid 2015 and replaced by Morden.
Frontier(1) the official 1.0 release was launched as public main network in the summer of 2015. Forked to Homestead in early 2016.
Morden(2) was the Frontier-equivalent testnet; it launched with Frontier and basically replaced Olympic. Deprecated in late 2016 and replaced by Ropsten.
Homestead(1) was the first major upgrade (1.1) of the Frontier network in March 2016. It did not replace Frontier but upgraded it.
Ropsten(3) is a new Homestead-equivalent testnet launched in late 2016 due to multiple issues in the old testnet; it finally replaced Morden. Ropstenwas attacked in February 2016and declared dead.
Kovan(42) is the first proof-of-authority (PoA) testnet issued by Ethcore, Melonport, and Digix after the Ropsten attacks.
Rinkeby, another PoA testnet is currently being drafted.
The current protocol version is Homestead. The Ropsten testnet is broken and there is no public Homestead equivalent testnet available.
Despite the differences in name, Olympic, Morden and Ropsten have the network ids0,2and3. Frontier, Homestead are the main network with id1. You can run your own chain by specifying a network id other than 0, 1, 2, or 3.
Upcoming releases:
Metropoliswill be the 1.2 release and come probably in the fall of 2017 and be rolled out using in two halves. It includes the opening of the decentralized application browsers and so called DApp stores, and will upgrade the Homestead network (1).
Serenityis among the most distant milestones and marks the move to Proof of Stake (PoS). This is often referred to as Ethereum 1.5 and I do not expect this to happen before 2018.
There are also blog posts by Vitalik Buterin talking about scalability and Ethereum 2.0 but these releases are way too far in the future, so let's wait for Metropolis for now.
What is Olympic, Frontier, Morden, Homestead and Ropsten Ethereum blockchain?https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/10311/what-is-olympic-frontier-morden-homestead-and-ropsten-ethereum-blockchain
Ropsten To Kovan To Rinkeby: Ethereum’s Testnet Troubles
Ethereum’s Ropsten testnet was suffering from a spam attack that was slowing down block times significantly. This led to the birth of the Parity-only Kovan testnet and the proposal of the cross-client Rinkeby testnet.
Ethereum’sMordentestnetran from July 2015 to November 2016. While anyone using Ethereum can create a testnet, Morden was the first official public testnet. Due to long sync times stemming from a bloatedblockchain, and consensus issues between the Geth and Parity clients, the testnet was rebooted andrebornasRopsten.
Ropsten ran smoothly as the public testnet until the end of February 2017. According to Péter Szilágyi, a core developer for Ethereum, the end of February is when “malicious actors decided to abuse the lowPoWand gradually inflate theblockgaslimits to 9 billion (from the normal 4.7 million), at which point sending in gigantic transactions crippling the entire network. Even before that, attackers attempted multiple extremely long reorgs, causing network splits between different clients, and even different versions.”
These attacks were able to propagate because a network that reaches consensus via aProof-of-Workalgorithm is only as secure as the computing power behind it. It was this low level ofdifficultythat allowed the attacker to spam the testnet. Since Ropsten was a testnet, itsEtherhad no financial value, so it’s likely the attacker only sought to disrupt the development of upcoming Ethereum projects.
The Parity team (Ethcore) came up with an emergency solution: the Kovan testnet. Kovan is a stable, public testnet for Ethereum, powered by Parity’s Proof-of-Authority consensus algorithm. Ethcore’s testnet is immune to spam attacks because the Ether supply is controlled by trusted parties. Those trusted parties are companies that are actively developing on Ethereum, listedhere. Due to their vested interest in the success of Ethereum, they’ve been made validators. Malicious actors will no longer be able to mine testnet Ether, and with validators controlling the token supply, the spam attacks cannot continue.
While it seems like this should be a solution to Ethereum’s testnet troubles, there appear to be consensus issues within the Ethereum community regarding the Kovan testnet. While Ethcore was quick to roll out a new, spam-proof version of a public testnet, they developed it in secrecy and it’s only accessible via Ethcore’s Parity client. Members of the Ethereum community have spoken out against the perceived actions of Ethcore (who have yet to comment on the controversy).
Now, the Ethereum Foundation is working on a cross-client testnet. The new testnet is called Rinkeby, and it will also use a Proof-of-Authority consensus mechanism, seeing as how PoW cannot work securely in a network with no monetary value. Unlike Kovan, Rinkeby’s PoA implementation will work with different clients, allowing more participants to operate in a spamless testnet. The specifics of the PoA system are onGitHub, for those interested.
The Rinkeby testnet isn’t operational yet, but should be rolled out “in a reasonable amount of time,” according to its GitHub repo. Currently, the Ropsten testnet is still functioning but is also still entirely vulnerable totransactionspam attacks. The Kovan testnet is up and running but you can only access it via the Parity client.
https://www.ethnews.com/ropsten-to-kovan-to-rinkeby-ethereums-testnet-troubles
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