#Ethereum: Byzantium Hard Fork Announcement - What Should You Do?
Metropolis is finally (almost) here! The fork for Byzantium, the first and larger part of Metropolis, succeeded on the testnet over two weeks ago, and the likely date for the fork on the mainnet has been set to block 4.37 million, which is expected to be on Oct 17. New features include opcodes such as REVERT and RETURNDATACOPY, as well as precompiles that can be used to support a wide array of cryptographic algorithms. At the same time, we have been seeing many improvements to Ethereum core code, Whisper, Swarm as well as Ethereum’s future scaling plans.
The Ethereum network will be undergoing a planned hard fork at block number 4.37mil (4,370,000), which will likely occur between 12:00 UTC and 13:00 UTC on Monday, October 16, 2017. The Ropsten test network underwent a hard fork on September 19th (UTC) at block number 1.7mil (1,700,000). A countdown timer can be seen here.
Market Performance
There are forks on the horizon for both bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin's looks like it might get ugly. Ethereum will probably be smooth like butter. Ethereum is showing some positive movements since the announcement has been made via Ethereum Twitter Account. Ethereum is about to touch $350 landmark for the first time since 1st September.
The past seven days market performance gives us a lot of insight into where the market is leading us;
In the last 24 hours the following market has been a puller in driving Ethereum volume.
| No | Market | Pair | Volume(24h) | Price | Volume Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Bithumb | ETH/KRW | $221,339,000 | $344.04 | 18.24% |
| 2. | Bitfinex | ETH/USD | $131,854,000 | $342.44 | 10.87% |
| 3. | Coinone | ETH/KRW | $98,129,300 | $343.95 | 8.09% |
| 4. | Poloniex | ETH/BTC | $88,255,100 | $342.46 | 7.27% |
| 5. | GDAX | ETH/USD | $83,965,500 | $339.99 | 6.92% |
It seems that the trend will likely continue for a while. In my opinion, Ethereum market performance is a very very daring move at a time when everyone is pouring their money into Bitcoin pit. It's a very encouraging sign for the Ethereum investors.
The reason I call this a very encouraging and daring move is that, if Ethereum can show an upward trend at this movement, it would have been a much higher gain if there was no Bitcoin fork ahead. I suspect that Ethereum may go exponentially high when everyone is busy grabbing Bitcoin Gold. Nonetheless, it's an opportunity and investors won't let it go pass by. Let's see how it surprises us in the coming days.
As a user, what do I need to do?
Keep yourself updated and it would be great if you could move your funds from exchanges. Download the latest version of your Ethereum client:
- Latest version of Ethereum Wallet/Mist.
- Latest geth client (v 1.7.1)
- Latest Parity client (v 1.7.6)
- Latest Harmony client (v 2.1.0)
What is a hard fork in Ethereum?
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.
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.
What if I am using a web or mobile Ethereum wallet like MyEtherWallet or Jaxx?
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. If you use a third-party web-based or mobile Ethereum wallet, your wallet provider may need to update for the hard fork. It is recommended that you check with them to see what actions they are taking to update for the hard fork and if they are asking their users to take other steps.
What happens if I do not participate in the hard fork?
If you are using an Ethereum client that is not updated for the upcoming hard fork, your client will sync to the pre-fork blockchain once the fork occurs. You will be stuck on an incompatible chain following the old rules, without replay protection against the main network. Old clients will be able to construct transactions, but will not be able to see the effects of those transactions.
What changes are included in the Byzantium hard fork?
The following upgrades are included:
Addition of ‘REVERT’ opcode, which permits error handling without consuming all gas (EIP 140)
Transaction receipts now include a status field to indicate success or failure EIP 658)
Elliptic curve addition and scalar multiplication on alt_bn128 (EIP 196) and pairing checks (EIP 197), permitting ZK-Snarks and other cryptographic mathemagic™
Support for big integer modular exponentiation (EIP 198), enabling RSA signature verification and other cryptographic applications
Support for variable length return values (EIP 211)
Addition of the ‘STATICCALL’ opcode, permitting non-state-changing calls to other contracts (EIP 214)
What if something goes wrong?
In the event that a critical bug is discovered, the following communication channels will be utilized:
Credits: Ethereum Developers
Sources and for more details visit: 1, 2
Let’s go ethereum
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I personally don't like the vote for vote stuff. If you like a content, and you think that is valuable, provide an upvote. If not, then there is no reason to vote. But maybe it's just me :)
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It is nice to see someone is paying attention to Ethereum after all the rise of Bitcoin. I find it really interesting an promising so I hope that ghe majority of people will go to the new chain, and not getting stuck as some did with Ethereum Classic, or even worse, as happened to bitcoin cash where most of the people remained on the old chain. Improvements are being made and people should encourage them. Great article!
Thanks man. I hope you ejoy ETH's green trend.:)
I do, but I would have enjoyed it much more if I would actually had ETH! by the way, after reading the article I have said to myself that I gotta follow this guy, he had a really great article, then I realized I was already following you :))
lol, I thought were hodling.
And Thank you for the appreciation, that's probably the best comment I have ever received. But I can't take credit for this one. I just put a little effort into the investment section. Tx again :)
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