So far all estimates say sometime in 2018. Because implementing Casper is the first major shift in Ethereum's evolutionary trajectory, I predict this event will have a major impact on the price of Ethereum. This could mean there is a limited amount of time until this event occurs, very similar to how things went for Bitcoin after it's block reward halving event(s).
Prior to Casper being implemented we can expect a difficulty bomb to phase out mining and a shift to a hybrid Proof of Work + Proof of Stake. This hybrid condition is meant to be a transitional period to ease the switch from Proof of Work into Proof of Stake without causing cultural shock. We will most likely see the difficulty bomb in 2018 and my best estimate is spring of 2018 is a reasonable time frame but I am not entirely sure.
This could occur also in spring or summer 2018 but again I don't know how long it will take. Because the test net for Casper is being implemented, I would have to go ahead and estimate we will see the first implementation in spring if all goes well. This will of course be a hybrid, while the difficulty bomb is set off to pressure miners out of mining ETH and into more profitable crypto.
Not sure if this will be implemented in 2018. It could be, or it might not be, but this is hard for me to know. I would have to expect it will not be, but it's not due to any technical reason as it really depends on what happens in spring and summer. I think fall 2018 to winter 2018 we could see it, but I doubt it.
When we see full Casper implemented it is also hopeful that we see sharding, as the issue will be making Ethereum scale. If Ethereum can scale, and Casper is implemented, then I can see Ethereum reaching a 1 trillion dollar market cap. Sharding will do a lot to help Ethereum scale, and Plasma may help too, along with other approaches. Casper will make Ethereum the best store of value, and of course we may have MakerDAO with it's Dai acting as a stable token.
When do you think Casper will be ready? For people preparing to stake under Proof of Stake, how much time do you think you will have to get enough tokens? How high do you see the price going after Casper?
