Ethereum Constantinople & Petersburg Fork: What is it, & what does it mean?
Got Questions?
When is the fork upgrade?
The “fork” AKA Constantinople upgrade, is Ethereum’s next system-wide upgrade coming soon to a theater like node near you! The date for Ethereum’s long-awaited hard fork is approaching quickly. After an initial block ETA'ed for February 25th being cancel to prevent a bug in one of the EIP's, the countdown is now reset to happen at block 7,280,000.
Will this result in a split, and new coin?
Most likely this will not be a contentious fork. This means a majority of ETH miners are onboard with the upgrade, and will be upgrading their nodes when the fork is live. These nodes, the network of computers that run ethereum software, must either update together with the whole system, or continue running as a separate blockchain entity. So most likely no, this will not result in a new coin or chain.
What is the Constantinople & St. Petersburg Fork Upgrade?
This long-awaited hardfork will bring major changes to the Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), which will affect several things, such as core protocol specifications, client APIs, and contract standards. Due to several accidental forks happening in the past caused by the confusion of the previously-cancelled hardfork, the upcoming upgrade will also be reversing to the original Constantinople changes.
The new addition this time around is called the St. Petersburg upgrade, and ia scheduled to occur on the same block number as Constantinople.
Despite all of the controversies, Ethereum has been seeing some really good days in the crypto market lately, which is probably related to the hardfork’s confirmed new schedule. Let’s hope that this time there isn't another delay! Hopefully Ethereum can get back on track to fulfill all the positive predictions for this year!
