Co-founder of Casper Labs believes we may see a third version of Ethereum soon

Talking on this week’s CNBC crypto trader show, co-founder of Casper Labs Scott Walker claimed there will soon be a third version of Ethereum.

In a discussion with host Ran Neur, Walker also talked about Vlad Zamfir joining his project and said he is vying to launch the Casper technology even before Ethereum does.

Casper Labs is hoping to implement its own native proof-of-stake blockchain based on the Casper scaling solution proposed by core Ethereum developer Vlad Zamfir. The firm raised $20 million in a funding round led by Galaxy Digital.

Walker stated: “There are major problems with proof-of-stake blockchains today. They have yet to scale, and the ones that have scaled have done so by reducing decentralisation. We believe that that [Casper Lab’s blockchain] is the best solution ever proposed for a fully decentralised and scalable blockchain.”

A third Ethereum?

When asked if he thinks Ethereum will also be implementing a version of Casper, Walker said: “I absolutely believe that Ethereum will implement some version of Casper, but I don’t know which one or when that may occur.”

He then went on to say that he believes that there will be a third version of Ethereum.

“There is Ethereum Classic, there is the current Ethereum (that is the mined proof-of-work token), and there will soon be a third version of Ethereum,” which he thinks will maintain the ETH ticker.

The Casper Labs founder was alluding to a possible upcoming chain split for the Ethereum network that may result from the hard fork upgrade towards a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm.

This type of network contention is feasible based on the fact that the move to proof-of-stake would disintermediate the current Ethash mining network that secures the blockchain today. At the moment, the miners receive a 5 ETH  mining reward for each block they process, but this will soon move to 3 ETH with the planned Constantinople upgrade and eventually nothing with the move to a full proof-of-stake network.

Vlad is not leaving Ethereum

Finally, Walker was asked about the recent reports about Zamfir looking to leave the Ethereum to officially join the Casper Labs project. Walker said that after speaking to Zamfir, that he is “not taking a step back or forward [from the Ethereum project].”

After further questioning about Zamfir’s title in the Casper Labs project, Walker said: “Vlad is not titled yet in the project, but we are currently in discussion with Vlad and his team.”