Earlier in the month, I wrote an article about a couple of forks happening on the Ethereum network in the month of January, the major one being the Constantinople fork. The Constantinople fork was originally scheduled to happen sometime around January 15th – January 17th on block 7,080,000. Now however due to a security vulnerability, the Ethereum Constantinople fork will happen sometime around February 26th – 28th at block number 7,280,000 which likely will happen at some time on February 27th.
This roughly 6-week delay was brought on by the fact that during a smart contract audit of some of the code conducted by a firm called “ChainSecurity” there was a vulnerability revealed in one of the proposed network upgrades that would allow hackers to steal funds from Ethereum smart contracts.
The Ethereum Constantinople fork has multiple different network upgrades and encloses five “Ethereum Improvement Proposals” or EIPs that are intended to help smooth the transition from the current proof-of-work on Ethereum when it moves to the proof-of-stake consensus algorithm. During the smart contract audit, a vulnerability was found in one of these EIPs, and now that network upgrade will no longer be implemented and will undergo more testing.
Coin Telegraph reported over the last several weeks that major cryptocurrency exchanges were planning to support the Ethereum Constantinople fork, and these exchanges include Coinbase, Kraken, Huobi, and Okex. I mentioned something along these lines in my last update about the Ethereum forks that can be found here: https://whalereports.com/upcoming-ethereum-forks-what-you-need-to-know/ but this is likely not an overly bullish event for Ethereum.
While the network upgrades and efficiency improvements are positive for the schematics of the cryptocurrency, this is likely not going to be an incredible event that drives a price increase, rather, a “sell the news” situation may be the smarter more here. I would speculate that there may be some increased attention to the fork now that there is drama over the delay, potentially causing a price increase leading up to the fork. It is also likely that the fork event will have little to no significant on price movement.
All speculation aside, hopefully, the fork goes at planned for later November, as many think this will be a positive move for the Ethereum ecosystem. Vitalik stated that he felt a 6-week delay was fair, and most of the upgrades and improvements will be focused on removing the malicious code, working towards a more secure upgrade. If all goes as planned the Ethereum Constantinople fork will likely happen around February 27th, at block 7,280,000.
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Sources:
- https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-team-lead-constantinople-hard-fork-to-activate-in-late-february’
- https://www.newsbtc.com/2019/01/18/ethereum-constantinople-hard-fork-scheduled-for-late-february-following-recent-delay/
- https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-devs-propose-activating-constantinople-hard-fork-in-late-february
- https://www.ccn.com/ethereum-hard-fork-rescheduled-heres-when-constantinople-will-finally-launch/
- https://whalereports.com/upcoming-ethereum-forks-what-you-need-to-know/
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://whalereports.com/ethereum-constantinople-fork-delayed-what-you-need-to-know/