A summary of my findings with sources to facilitate your own research.
So I was doing some last minute research on the upcoming Ethereum hard fork and these are my conclusions.
From the Ethereum blog I found this information;
What is Metropolis, Byzantium, and Constantinople?
Metropolis is a planned Ethereum development phase that includes two hard forks: Byzantium and Constantinople. Byzantium is occurring at block number 4.37mil. Constantinople does not currently have a release date, but is expected in 2018.
The reported purpose of Metropolis is to address scalability, privacy and safety issues and will prepare the way for the future planned hard fork called "Serenity".
The "Byzantine" portion of the fork will include:
• zk-SNARKs or in plain English Zero-Knowledge proofs, increasing anonymity of transactions.
• Easier programming of smart-contracts with a gas adjustment for bill setting.
• Better security through 'masking' allowing users to determine addresses which they hold the private key.
• A mining adjustment called a 'difficulty-bomb' making mining exponentially more difficult.
Now all this is well and good but how does it affect those holding Ether in wallets or exchanges?
Well, as 'the merkle' reports;
Some people are growing concerned the upcoming Metropolis hard fork could result in yet another Ethereum currency being created. While that is certainly possible on paper, it seems highly unlikely in reality. The reason why Ethereum Classic exists is due to a difference in ideology regarding The DAO “bailout.” Some people felt it was wrong to do this, and they branched off from the Ethereum network. That doesn’t mean every Ethereum hard fork will create a new currency, though.
If that would have been the case, there would be five different Ethereum currencies in existence right now. So far, only two exist, and it is highly doubtful that number will ever increase. That is, unless another ideological debate arises. Metropolis does not fall into this category by any means, though. Metropolis will introduce a lot of technical changes, but none that should force anyone to branch off from the network anytime soon.
HOWEVER
Another report published on the 12th of October by Coindesk points out that
Signs are beginning to show ethereum's next big upgrade might not be as smooth as expected.
At press time, the parity client, maintained by U.K.-based Parity Technologies, and which supports roughly 25 percent of all ethereum nodes, has yet to release software that includes the protocol changes needed for the shift. The delays come at a time when most other major versions of the software have already published their releases ahead of Sunday's likely fork.
More importantly
Parity has released two Byzantium-ready releases in the past week, however, both were found to contain a "consensus bug," meaning that Parity nodes would not have been able to communicate with the remaining network, causing the blockchain to split.
According to Ether Nodes, 17% of Parity clients are running faulty Byzantium software, while 80% have yet to upgrade at all. If the release isn't ready on time, it could release some very sticky complications down the line.
I know.... confusing right? So my conclusion is that while the creation of a new coin is unlikely, it is nevertheless possible. So if you have any concerns the advice tends to be;
a) take Ether out of exchanges and put it in a wallet that gives you control over private keys.
b) if by chance there is a fork find a wallet that supports the new coin.
c) if you decide to claim your share of that coin, move your Ether to another wallet prior to exporting your private keys in order to avoid a 'replay attack' which might see you lose any Ether you had in that wallet.
IMAGE SOURCES - Ethereum (original), GIF, Thank you
