New and Improved Ethereum Wallet 0.5.1 (Beta 9) Released

5 Mar
2016

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The work on the official Ethereum graphical wallet (GUI wallet) is continuing and the software is getting improved and becoming more user friendly with each new beta release, making it easier for new people to get started with ETH. The wallet relies on geth (by default) or the eth client as a backend and provides a user friendly interface with the most important information and functions available to the user without requiring him to type console commands to execute them. The latest version Ethereum Wallet 0.5.1 (Beta 9) is ready for the upcoming Ethereum hardfork as the crypto currency moves to the next phase of its development called Homestead that is planned to happen at block 1150000 or in other words in less than 50 thousand blocks.

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The Ethereum GUI wallet can be used as a new installation to get you started with a new wallet, it will start with an easy step by step guide to help you get started by generating a new wallet and even import pre-sale wallet if you have participated in the pre-sale and still have not imported your coins. If you already have a local wallet and were using the geth or eth console clients, then you can use the GUI wallet with your existing address and the blockchain data will not need to be re-downloaded as you already have it available locally and the GUI wallet will use it. It took some time for the official Ethereum GUI wallet to become available and to offer the functionality users needed in an easy graphical user interface, but you can say that now, even thought still in beta, the GUI wallet works very well and makes it really easy for new users to get into Ethereum.

– To download an try out the latest official Ethereum GUI Wallet 0.5.1 (Beta 9)…

Ethereum’s Blockchain Already Over 9GB in Size

5 Mar
2016

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With all the craziness surrounding the constantly growing price of Ethereum in the last weeks we also need to take a look at what is happening with the ETH blockchain in terms of file size. Taking a look at the total file size of Ethereum’s blockchain we can see that it is already approaching 9.5 GB in size, something that is a direct result of the fast block times and the growing user interest in ETH. When you consider the fact that Ethereum is still less than 1 year old crypto currency if you only take into account when the mining officially stated and not when the work on it has started. The big blockchain file size makes things harder on users that are just starting and want to run a full local node 24/7 or just wan to have a local wallet and with the increase in interest into Ethereum there are more and more new people joining. For the last month alone the number of unique Ethereum addresses on the blockchain has almost doubled than the number it was at the beginning of February. The number of transaction on the network is also steadily growing, but not as much as new users getting into Ethereum due to the rapid increase of the ETH price.

Update Your Ethereum Clients to be Ready for the Homestead Hardfork

3 Mar
2016

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There are just about 57000 blocks left before we reach the Ethereum hardfork planned for block 1150000 when Ethereum will move to the next phase called Homestead. Do note that Homestead is the second major version release of the Ethereum platform, which includes several protocol changes and a networking change that requires the hardfork. The Ethereum clients with support for the Homestead are already available for download and it is recommended to upgrade any Ethereum nodes or local wallets if you are using such at this time in order to be ready for the hardfork.

The initial Go version of Ethereum (geth) for Homestead is release 1.3.4, but there is already 1.3.5 and the initial C++ version of Ethereum (eth) for Homestead is the version 1.2.0 with version 1.2.2 already available with some fixes. Do not wait for the last possible moment or after the 1150000th block is here in order to avoid any possible issues resulting from the hardfork. A large number of the Ethereum nodes have already been updated, but there are still some that are running older versions of the software that are not ready for the hardfork. Hopefully all of the Ethereum mining pools and the nodes running 24/7 on the network will be ready for the hardfork that should hit in a little over a week from now.

– To download the latest Ethereum Go client geth version 1.3.5 (Homestead)…
– To download the latest Ethereum C++ eth client version 1.2.2 (Homestead)…

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