Ethereum Constantinople Hard Fork Set for Late February 2019
January 21, 2019. Members of the Ethereum community has voted to postpone the planned Constantinople Hard Fork and set a new target – activation at block 7,280,000, which is expected to happen on February 27, 2019. The Hard Fork will happen without including the elements that have delayed it to begin with.
The proposal was finalized in a meeting by leading members of the ethereum blockchain community, including Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and developers like Danny Ryan and Peter Szilagyi. It was Mr. Szilagyi who announced on Twitter that the upgrade will happen on the aforementioned block.
The Constantinople Hard Fork will not include those related to Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) no. 1283. That particular proposal is supposed to adjust gas cost on an operation code called SSTORE but as it turns out, reducing the gas cost can pave the way for attackers to exploit the blockchain. This was not possible before because the gas cost originally for that operation is 5000 gas.
The upcoming Constantinople Hard Fork will happen in two phases. The first one will include all the EIPs supposed to be upgraded last time. The 2nd phase will remove EIP 1283.
Mr. Buterin noted that Constantinople should happen soon than further delay it because of the “difficulty bomb”. This is a code that is set to make mining difficult in the Ethereum blockchain over time. This is to be done as part of Ethereum’s goal to transform from a proof-of-work blockchain into a proof-of-stake blockchain.
In the Philippines, Coins.ph, which is operating a Central Bank-licensed cryptocurrency exchange service has announced downtime ahead of the supposed time of the hard fork, only to retract it upon confirmation that Constantinople will not proceed.
This article first appeared at BitPinas on January 21, 2019: Ethereum Constantinople Hard Fork Set for Late February 2019
