The long-awaited updates of Constantinople and St.Petersburg will make significant changes to the Ethereum blockchain . Improvements will affect the specifications of the underlying protocols, client APIs and contract standards.
The official announcement states that the planned updates will occur simultaneously at block No. 7,280,000, which, according to Amberdata.io, is likely to occur on February 28.
According to the Ethereum blog, the exact date may vary depending on the time the blocks were created and the updates can be activated 1-2 days earlier or later than the planned date.
Recall that the activation of Constantinople, which is part of a three-stage update called Metropolis, which combines a total of five proposals for improving Ethereum (EIP), has already been postponed in January due to a vulnerability.
Constantinople should contribute to a multiple increase in the efficiency of the platform, as well as to postpone the so-called "bomb complexity" and reduce the reward for the extraction of the block in the network of Ethereum.
“Bomb of complexity” is a function designed to prevent miners from continuing their activities on the network after the transition of Ethereum to the PoS consensus method . However, since the introduction of PoS is still delayed, the developers of Ethereum had to postpone the “bomb of complexity”.
Let's look at some of the most important aspects from the upcoming Ethereum update. To avoid vulnerabilities, the Ethereum development team decided that the network would have two hard forks in one block.
The first fork of Constantinople will implement all the proposed changes, while the second St.Petersburg will disable the protocol in which problems were previously identified.
What changes will we see in the upcoming update?
- The so-called "bomb complexity" will be postponed.
- Mining awards for Ethereum will drop from 3 to 2 ETH.
- It will be possible to allow interaction with addresses that do not yet exist on the network.
- This update will make cheaper (less gas required) implementation of various actions on the network.
What you need to do the owner of the node or miner?
According to the Ethereum blog, the only thing the node owner or miner needs to do is download the latest version of the Ethereum client.
If you decide not to update, you will be stuck on an incompatible network, following the old rules, and you will not be able to send air or work on the Ethereum network after the update.
So better update your Ethereum client.
What do Ethereum holders and users need to do?
If you are not the owner of the node or the miner, you absolutely do not need to do anything.
“If you are using a stock exchange (for example, Binance , Coinbase or Huobi ), a web wallet (for example, Metamask, MyCrypto or MyEtherWallet), a mobile wallet (for example, Coinbase Wallet, Status.im or Trust Wallet) or a hardware wallet (such as Ledger, Trezor or KeepKey), you do not need to do anything, unless you are notified of the need for additional action from the support service of the cryptocurrency exchange or the wallet. "
Thus, most of us just need to relax and hope that this time there will not be any delay and updates of Ethereum will occur according to the plan in order to realize what is planned for this year.
Publication date 26.02.2019
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