What if Ethereum users choose to implement the hard fork of Constantinople by upgrading the software, will there any discontent party hard fork another chain?
- What is ETH Reward Reduction
The decision news on 33% reduction in Ethereum’s reward has sparked resentment in the prolonged bear market.
This development contributed additional pressure on ETH price. The simplified announcement: “The Ethereum CONSENSUS will ACTIVATE the Constantinople upgrade at a block height of 4.200000.” “At that time, the reward for generating new blocks will be reduced from the original 3 ETHs to 2 ETHs (33% reduction).
Later at the Ethereum Core Developers Conference on December 7th, developers finally decided that the 7,080,000 block on the Ethereum blockchain would be used as a hard-fork activation point, and users could choose to upgrade from the block to the new code. According to the current prediction, the hard fork will be upgraded around January 14-18, 2019.
If it’s confusing, in layman term: if the Ethereum user chooses to implement the hard fork of Constantinople by upgrading the software, all feature updates will not take effect until the 7,080,000 block is mined.
Additionally, Martin Holst Swende, Ethereum Foundation and “go-ethereum” security chief, revealed in order to ensure any unexpected problems from hard fork upgrade in Constantinople. They will release an upgraded version of the “go-ethereum” software that includes an “emergency switch” feature that allows users to delay upgrades in the event of an anomaly.
Furthermore, the expansion schemes for Ethereum’s shards and Casper mechanisms will not appear in the upcoming hard fork of Constantinople, because this is a small upgrade that includes five independent improvements (EIPS), the conviction is to facilitate the transition from work proof-of-work (pow) to more energy-efficient proof-of-stake (pos) consensus algorithm.
- Constantinople Hard Forks Twists And Turns
Looking back, Ethereum Constantinople hard forks can be best described as roller-coaster ride, the initial hard fork time is scheduled for November this year, but later because the test network deployment failed in October, the core developers announced that they will postpone. The plan to upgrade the Constantinople system upgrade project on the test network Ropsten.
Beside, the delay will provide space for Ropsten users to test other Ethereum projects (such as the offline expansion solution Raiden) in order to prepare for the possible forks in Constantinople, which means the original Ethereum Developers hope to optimize blockchain efficiency by simplifying platform code design.
But Ethereum is still trying to delay the implementation of the so-called “difficult bomb” by 18 months – in fact, the Difficulty Bomb agreement was created shortly after the birth of Ethereum, making the mining difficulty more and more difficult over time.
In the “Constantinople” version, Ethereum’s consensus algorithm will be transformed from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-work and proof-of-stake (PoS) hybrid consensus algorithm to improve the efficiency of the entire Ethereum blockchain. , reduce costs, and eventually transition to the fourth phase of the pure proof-of-stake consensus algorithm. One of the most interesting improvements is the reduction in output, and the block reward will be adjusted from 3ETH to 2ETH.
When these were announced, we couldn’t help but envision that the bull market cycle would followed the halving cycle.
Previously, media reported that in the Etherscan, clearly see that the block height has reached more than 6400000, far exceeding the height of the 4200000 block, so they mistakenly believe that this fork will only be tested in Ethereum. Conducted on the testnet, instead of the mainnet, hence has no effect on ETH and even the overall market.
However, although 4200000 does refer to the block height in the Ethereum testnet, the significance of the Ethereum testnet is to test the feasibility of various scalability optimization. The block height may be lower or higher due to different testnet startup time, etc. For example, the mainnet has reached more than 6400000 blocks, and the testnet has only reached more than 4200000.
The testnet’s fork is actually testing the feasibility of the Ethereum network moving from PoW to PoS, which means that if the fork in the testnet does improve efficiency, reduce cost and energy consumption, and Conducive to the Ethereum network to achieve a smooth transition from PoW to PoS, then the fork will be applied to the mainnet.
Ethereum test network is to facilitate the development and testing of smart contracts. A blockchain that runs separately has the same properties as the mainnet, and ETH in the testnet can be implemented free of charge to avoid ETH loss caused by BUG.
In general, the news of this output cut has caused a favorable effect on Ethereum. The decrease in circulation will cause the cost of miners to rise, and will also lay the foundation for the improvement of Ethereum’s performance, thus indirectly stimulating price appreciation. The purpose of output reduction is fitter to realize the transition from PoW to PoS, improve efficiency as well as reduce costs.
Of course, these arguments may still fit for the long-term view. At present, in the monumental bear market, any positive reaction may be limited. It may not be a good thing for the miners. The timing of this upgrade may not ideal for nodes. The one-third cut of reward will serve as a double blow to the miners that already suffering from the feeble ETH price.
Ultimately, the main objective of Ethereum is to reduce the reward of miners, to gradually phase out POW mining, and switch to POS.
- And Finally The Possibility of New Crypto
Matter of fact, hard fork for many cryptocurrency is merely an upgrade, doesn’t necessarily mean it would resulted into separate chains.
Ethereum is the leading pact in the blockchain 2.0 era. The pioneering concept of smart contract has changed the landscape of the blockchain market. 96% of the top 100 Tokens listed in the market are created based on Ethereum. Clearly, the 2017 bull market is largely driven by Ethereum blockchain.
Now that the Ethereum upgrade is imminent, this time the upgrade of Ethereum is different from the upgrade of BCH. BCH is a disintegration within the Bitcoin community, causing the BCH fork, yet it will bring along an uncertain future. In particular, the recent BCH forks and arguments are still drag out, and the miners can modify the BCH source code to create a currency with a market value of several billions. The pre-mined coins has generated huge returns, which has seriously disrupted the market order. It destroys the security of the blockchain network and is not conducive to the long-term healthy development of the blockchain.
The Ethereum Foundation has always maintained a strong position in community development and will ensure this from happening. This decision was made not only to implement the original development plan of Ethereum, but also to enhance the performance of Ethereum. It is also safeguard the healthy Ethereum future pices and reduced inflation.
Moreover, this upgrade of Ethereum is the unanimous agreement of the development team, and it is also milestone in the Ethereum whitepaper, amidst undergone numerous delays.
ETH used to derailed with ETC fork resulted of hacking incidents. It caused period of confusing for a while, and depressed the ether price to new low levels, but in retrospect, it was proven to be short term setback. Therefore, the prospect of new forked coin has little impact this time around.
And, Ethereum’s operability can be optimized with the protocol upgrade, which may affect Layer 2 and other public blockchains. The robustness of the underlying network will cause the Layer 2 network and related extension protocols to lose their significance, such as the Raiden Network and the POA Network.
On the other hand, the Ethereum community has the largest number of developers in the world and dApps under development. After the performance improvement, it will likely overwhelmed other public chains.
The next month’s Ether upgrade, will notch closer the PoS, with the eventual scalability enhancement will further realized in the next two years.