Posts Tagged ‘Ethereum hardfork’

Ethereum’s Istanbul Hard Fork to Start on December 4th

8, Nov 2019

The first phase of Ethereum’s next major hard fork is planned to happen on less than a month around December 4th at block number 9056000. The hard fork called Istanbul is divided in two parts with the first one to be executed on December 4th and the second one planned for early 2020. The next hard fork called Serenity that will bring Ethereum 2.0 and switch the project from PoW to PoS may or may not happen before the end of 2020, so there is still time for that. Is is worth mentioning that on December 4th Ethereum (ETH) will not be switching its mining algorithm from Ethash to the much anticipated and still somewhat controversial ProgPoW as this is still planned to happen in the second Istanbul phase with the EIP-1057 scheduled for the first quarter of 2020.

If you are still mining Ethereum with ASIC miners or GPUs and the Ethash algorithm you will have more than just a month left, it could easily take up to another 6 months for ProgPoW to replace Ethash as the PoW algorithm, though it can also happen faster than that. Nevertheless this can signal the upcoming death of ETH ASIC miners as although there are a number of other projects using the Ethash algorithm, they will most likely not be able to handle the massive hashrate outflow from Ethereum if/when it forks to ProgPoW. On the other hand ProgPoW can also bring a change in the way GPUs are being used for mining as it is supposed to provide a more level playing field for the different GPUs in terms of mining performance. So definitely Ethereum’s upcoming hard forks will have a serious impact on the crypto mining sector.

Ethereum’s (ETH) Next Hardfork is Coming at the End of February

13, Feb 2019

The much anticipated Constantinople hardfork of Ethereum was initially planned for the middle of January, however a serious bug was discovered shortly before the time of the fork, so it was postponed. The new date for for Ethereum’s latest network hardfork system upgrade is around 27-28 February (end of the month) or more specifically at block number 7,280,000 (200,000 blocks later than the originally planed block). The hardfork will be in two parts, the first one will include all five EIPs (Ethereum Improvement Proposals) including the problematic EIP 1283, that was the reason to postpone the fork initially, and the second part will be used to remove the problematic EIP 1283. So after the Constantinople and Petersburg hardfork (the two parts we are talking about) the Ethereum network will have the following 4 EIPs active – 145, 1014, 1052 and 1234.

The improvements to the Ethereum network that the new hardfork will bring are numerous and they focus on improving salability, speed and efficiency of the blockchain. There is however a change that is also important to the economics of the Ethereum network and one that is especially important for miners. EIP 1234 is going to adjust the block reward, so after the fork miners will be getting just 2 ETH coins per block instead of the 3 ETH that they are getting at the moment. There isn’t much needed from you to do in order to be ready for the hardfork if you are using or mining Ether, just make sure you update any local wallet or client that you might be running. Also make sure to not make any transactions around the time of the hardfork in order to avoid any possible issues with delayed transactions and lost coins, though normally such problems are not very likely.

Ethereum’s Byzantium Hard Fork is Happening Tomorrow

15, Oct 2017

The Ethereum (ETH) network will be undergoing a planned hard fork at block number 4.37 Million (4,370,000), which will likely occur between 12:00 UTC and 13:00 UTC on Monday, October 16, 2017. Ethereum users should update to the latest version of the Ethereum wallet/Mist if they are using it as well as any of the Ethereum clients – Geth, Parity or Harmony prior to the hard fork in order to be ready. Ethereum websites and mobile applications that allow you to store ether and/or make transactions are running their own Ethereum client infrastructure to facilitate their services and they should be doing the update as well in order to support he hard fork as well.

A hard fork is a change to the underlying Ethereum protocol, creating new rules to improve the system. The protocol changes are activated at a specific block number. All Ethereum clients need to upgrade, otherwise they will be stuck on an incompatible chain following the old rules. Metropolis is a planned Ethereum development phase that includes two hard forks: Byzantium and Constantinople. Byzantium is occurring at block number 4.37M (the hard fork happening tomorrow), while the second part – Constantinople does not currently have a release date, but is expected to happen some time in 2018.

Update: The hardfork has been successful, the new block reward is 3 ETH (down from 5), but also the effective block time and difficulty have pretty much halved, so in the end miners should still be able to get a better profit at the moment compared to before the fork.

– Here is a countdown for the time remaining until the Byzantium Hard Fork of Ethereum…


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