Ethereum, one of the most innovative and leading cryptocurrencies globally. What is Ethereum hard fork and how have they contributed to shaping the future of Ethereum blockchain? As been subjected to a series of upgrades and evolution to remain investment-worthy and keep its elite status on the high table.
These upgrades are initiatives to improve the blockchain's value and enable it to attend to the ever-evolving need of end-users.
The pathway via which these upgrades are initiated is known as Hard Fork.
In several years, the Ethereum network has gone through a voyage of defining upgrades.
Before we look into that, let's get ourselves familiar with the concept of the ethereum hard fork.
Hardfork is a systematic and intentional process by which a blockchain validates or invalidates its previously performed transaction.
This process initiates a permanent modification or upgrades to a blockchain by birthing two results, viz the old version and the new modified version.
When this process occurs, users of the particular blockchain network are expected to download and upgrade to the new features to access the modified features in the new software.
Notwithstanding, the birth of a new version of the blockchain does not eliminate the old versions. As users of the particular blockchain may continue to use and access the old version.
However, after completing the upgrade, blockchain developers introduce a difficulty bomb to make the transition to the new version seamless.
A difficult bomb is a feature that makes using the old version of software uninteresting and frustrating. Thereby backing users into a corner where they are left with no option other than to migrate to the upgrade version.
In essence, the Ethereum hard fork is a permanent upgrade or modification to the Ethereum blockchain. This upgrade is achieved by introducing Ethereum Improvement Proposals or EIPs.
EIPs are standard guidelines that spell out technical specifications that govern the introduction of new features in the development of ethereum. Let's take a look at the evolution of ethereum, shall we?
The London Ethereum hard fork, which went live on August 05th, 2021. At block 12,965,000, is deemed the most controversial and defining hard fork in the history of Ethereum.
All thanks to the radical innovations that came with its emergence.
The London hardfork birthed five novels EIPs to the ethereum network. Including EIP 1559, EIP 3554, EIP 3198, EIP 3529, and EIP 3541.
These EIPs each addresses a unique problem, though in unison to prepare the ground for the activation of Ethereum 2.0.
Notably among these EIPs are EIP 1559 and EIP 3554.
this upgrade aims to permanently address unpredictable, volatile transaction fees and the inflationary nature of Ethereum. According to Vitalik Buterin, "EIP 1559 is a transaction pricing mechanism that includes fixed per-block network fee that is burned and dynamically expands or contracts block sizes to deal with transient congestion. Before the London hardfork, transaction fees were bid for by users of the network. The bidding system operates so that users can place a bid before their transactions are concluded(the higher you bid, the sooner your order is taken). Thus making the transaction fees unpredictable and volatile, especially during high loads. The EIP 1559 addresses this issue by introducing a predictable base fee at each block.
Another major milestone of the EIP 1559 is its introduction of a scarce mechanism to address the inflationary nature of Ethereum tokens. Unlike bitcoin that has a fixed number of circulating supply, Ethereum has none. Meaning that for every transaction validated and added to the block, the validators or miners are rewarded with ether. Thus perpetually increasing the circulating supply of ether will, in the long run, lead to inflation and devaluation of ether in the process. However, with the EIP 1559, the base fees will be burnt rather than paying the base fee to miners, while miners will receive inclusion fees(tips) for transactions from users. Make ether tokens scarce as some coins will be burnt forever, thereby increasing the value of the ethereum. However, this is sad news for miners as it signals the end of earnings for miners.
EIP 3554 is saddled with the intent to give developers ample time to prepare for the transition to Ethereum 2.0. This upgrade is proposed to bring about a delay to the initiation of a difficult time bomb. The difficult time bomb is a mechanism designed to make mining activities more complex and difficult to earn from. This upgrade aims to make mining via proof of stake complex and unappealing to miners, thus making the transition to proof of stake seamless. The proposal for a difficulty bomb was initially drafted to take effect from the second quarter of December 2022. But the EIP 3554 will backdate this delay to December 2021. When this time is initiated, it will signal the birth of the Ethereum Ice Age.
this upgrade serves a distinct purpose creating a grand opening for the improvement of Ethereum Virtual Machine by recognizing contracts that follow the semantics of EIP 3540.
this upgrade improves the end-user experience by adding an operational code that makes it easy for smart contract/EVMs to access the base fee. It also allows for security improvement for plasma, optiroll, and other state fraud-proof-driven solutions.
This upgrade focuses on removing gas refunds for SELFDESTRUCT and reducing gas refunds for SSTORE, thereby enabling the block to have access to more than the previous gas limit.
The Berlin hardfork came to life on April 15th, 2021, at block 12,244,000, and with it came the birth of 4 EIPs - EIP 2565, EIP2929, EIP 2718, and EIP 2930.
Though with a distinct purpose, it will look to hover around issues like optimizing gas fees, introducing new transaction types, and improving the network's security. The major improvements occasioned by the berlin Hardfork are s follow:
EIP 2565: the EIP2565 upgrade dictates the reduction of gas fees cost of Modular exponentiation precompile. The rationale behind the upgrade is to:
The Beacon chain went live on December 01st, 2020. The upgrade didn't bring any change to present-day ethereum.
However, the Beacon chain will conduct and coordinate how the network works.
The Beacon Chain Genesis births EIP phase 0, better known as proof of stake to the ethereum ecosystem.
SDCD hard fork upgrade was initiated on October 14th, 2020, at block number 11,052,984. It initiated staking to the ethereum ecosystem.
Notwithstanding its being a mainnet type of contract, it immediately affected the timeline for releasing the beacon chain, which is essential to the upgrade to Ethereum 2.0.
The Muir Glacier Fork was implemented and activated on the mainnet on 02 2020 at block number 9,200,000.
The upgrade only introduced just one EIP- EIP 2384. EIP 2384 upgrade introduces a delay to the difficult bomb by 4,000,000 blocks or another 611 days.
The difficulty time bomb is built into the Ethereum proof of work algorithm to elevate the complexities of mining further and getting rewarded through the POW system.
Introducing the difficulty bomb aims is to increase the complexities of working with the POW system till the systems start experiencing degradation.
The initiation of this difficulty bomb into motion is referred to as the Ice Age.
The EIP 2384 upgrades will delay this process by about 611 days, allowing users and developers to prepare for the transitory phase leading to the implementation of ethereum 2.0.
What is the Istanbul Hard fork?
The Instanbul hard fork is the 8th Ethereum network upgrade.
Previous network upgrades have been named; Byzantium, Spurious Dragon, with the most recent upgrade prior to Istanbul being named Constantinople.
A network upgrade is implemented after the community agrees about what changes must be included in the upcoming upgrade.
Afterward, protocol changes become programmed into various Ethereum clients, like; Besu, Parity, Nethermind, and Geth.
Once the new changes are installed, new features can be accessed, but nodes that have not been upgraded will be left behind on the old chain.
Official EIPs contained in this fork include:
The Constantinople upgrade was activated on February 28th, 2019, at block number 7,280,000, with a special interest in ensuring the ethereum network doesn't freeze up before implementing Proof of Stake.
It also enables the optimization of the cost of a transaction when carrying out certain tasks in the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
Furthermore, the Constantinople upgrade introduces interoperability features between blockchain and addresses that haven't been created.
The Constantinople Hardfork introduced 4 EIPs:
The Byzantium Hard Fork is an upgrade to the ethereum network and was activated on October 16th, 2017, at block number 4,370,000.
It introduced and implemented 9 EIPs to the network to improve Ethereum's network privacy, scalability issues, and its security component.
The 9 EIPs implemented by Byzantium Hard fork are:
The Byzantium hard fork reduced block reward from 5 ether to 3 ether for each block; enhanced cryptography and embedded transaction status code in receipts.
Spurious Dragon is the fourth hard fork and the second part of the two-round hard fork plan in response to the denial of service (DoS) attacks on the Ethereum network that lasted from September till October.
The earlier hard fork known as Tangerine Whistle addressed the immediate network health issues from the attacks.
This upcoming hard fork tackles important but less urgent matters.
Official EIPs contained in this fork include:
The Spurious Dragon fork came as the second response to the denial of service (DoS) attacks on the network (September/October 2016).\
Upgrades implemented includes:
On September 18th (UTC), the Ethereum network suffered a series of attacks by a person or group of persons resulting in heavy delays to process transactions.
The network became saturated with pending transactions which caused further delays in processing other transactions, a well-known example of a denial-of-service (DoS) attack on the Ethereum blockchain.
In response to the September/October 2016 denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on the Ethereum network, the Tangerine Whistle fork was proposed as part of a two-round hard fork.
It focused on addressing the more urgent matters regarding network health issues.
Official EIPs contained in this fork include:
The GitHub repository for Ethereum Improvement Proposals has the respective changes to the Ethereum protocol documented for more technical information.
DAO fork came to life on July 20th, 2016, on block 1,920,000 after a unanimous decision was reached by the majority of the mining power in support of an upgrade to tackle an attack.
Though considered a controversial fork, the DAO upgrade is considered a purposive upgrade targeted at forestalling the 2016 DAO attack.
This was where a hacker capitalized on the vulnerabilities of\
DAO contracts and stole more than a 3.6million ether. And led to the implementation of the DAO fork.
The DAO fork birthed the EIP 779 to adjust the attack codes, thereby locking up the contract while allowing investors to remove their money from the DAO contracts.
It is worthy of note to state that EIP 779 did not attempt to adjust the network's protocol; rather, it introduced an "irregular state change" that moved balanced from "child DAO" contracts to the "WithdrawDAO" contract.
However, the minority mining power of the ethereum community felt the attack was not a result of a major flaw in the network's protocol to warrant an upgrade.
So the minority mining power went on with the pre-forked version of the blockchain, rebranding it as Ethereum (ETC).
The Ethereum Homestead was observed on March 14th, 2016, and is the second major version of the ethereum platform.
Its release brought about the implementation of many changes to the ethereum protocol and a network change that affords ethereum the power to undergo more network upgrades.
Homestead hard fork birthed four distinct EIPs:
Other hard forks that the ethereum blockchain has gone through in its evolution are:
The ethereum blockchain has continually improved on its platform to be on par with the ever-changing complexities of end-users needs. Its upgrade to satisfy this need has earned it the title of second most important cryptocurrency after bitcoin.
