After a number of failed attempts, due to bugs and consensus misalignment, the Ethereum core development team has finally decided to go ahead with the fabled Constantinople blockchain upgrade. This is the project’s first named upgrade in over a year, accentuating its importance. Here’s BlockGeek’s breakdown of the upgrade, including the deets and what it means for the popular crypto project.
For those who missed a memo, the updrades to go live at Block number 7,280,000 as per ethereum.org under the Ethereum Improvement proposal will entail
- EIP 145 — This protocol will introduce bitwise shifting introductions into Ethereum’s virtual machine, meaning that some on-chain functions will be cheaper and easier to complete than before.
- EIP 1014 — The so-called “Skinny CREATE2” proposal will allow smart contract developers to interact with Ethereum addresses that have yet to be created.
- EIP 1052 — This EIP is somewhat similar to 145, as it also reduces the amount of Ethereum gas needed to execute certain operations.
- EIP 1234 — This is arguably the ‘big kahuna’ of Constantinople. This proposal delays the “difficulty bomb” (a.k.a. the “Ice Age”), which pushes block times higher over time, by reducing Ether rewards from 3 ETH/block to 2 ETH/block.
- The removal of EIP 1283 — 1283 is much like 145 and 1052, but this EIP will have to be removed due to a ground-breaking bug that was discovered by auditors. There is a high likelihood that 1283 (or something built off the proposal) will make its way back to the Ethereum mainchain… eventually.
Should You Do Anything?
If you aren’t running a full node, Ether mining, or something of a similar caliber, there is a high likelihood that you don’tneed to move your ETH or do anything with your wallet/service provider.
The world’s largest crypto exchanges, like Bitfinex, Coinbase, Binance, have announced support for Constantinople, meaning that all the Ethereum processes involved with this upgrade will be dealt with by their engineer teams. As Changpeng Zhao would say, “funds are SAFe.” Users of web wallets, like MetaMask and MyEtherWallet, light wallets, like Coinbase Wallet and Trust Wallet, and hardware devices, like the Ledger Nano S, should also be totally A-OK, as these startups will also be upgrading their nodes to ensure they are reading the right chain.
