Ethereum (ETH) Constantinopole Hardfork Explained – What is it and what should you do?
Basic terminology
Ethereum is a public, open-sourced bitcoin [BTC] platform featuring smart contracts and its native bitcoin [BTC] Ether. Launched on July 30, 2015, Ethereum is now the second biggest bitcoin [BTC] by market cap behind bitcoin [BTC] and one that was a big reason for the 2017 bull run.
A hard fork is when a single bitcoin [BTC] splits in two. It occurs when a bitcoin [BTC]’s existing code is changed, resulting in both an old and new version.
The reason why Ethereum is being hard forked is because the upgrade is supposed to fundamentally change the Ethereum bitcoin [BTC], with the synchronous nodes update to the entire system
Fork explained
The upcoming Constantinople hard fork encompassses five separate Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs): EIP 145, EIP 1014, EIP 1052, EIP 1283, EIP 1234.
The main aim of the improvements is to soften the transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to more energy efficient proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus algorithm which supposed to take place this year with testnet in few months
Another important aspect ofthis hard fork is the fact that it reduces issuance of ETH by 33% from 3 ETH per block to 2 ETH per block meaning less ETH supply which could positively affect price.
Apart from that most updates are being the scenes preparation for the future and some minor improvements that should make Ethereum better.
What should you do?
The Constantinople Fork is set to go live around 16th of Jan 2019 but since the fork date is decided on block number (7,080,000) it might happen before that or later.
Since this is a major and important fork all major exchanges and wallets should support it so you probably do not have to do anything but you can double check your exchange/wallet just to be safe.
In theory you will get new ETH and might keep the old one depending where you store (you need private key) it but in practice the old ETH will not be worth anything since nobody will support the network and you won’t be able to sell it anywhere meaning no ‘free’ money.
Conclusion
From the perspective of the average user the fork won’t make any significant difference for now and doesn’t require any action.
It is difficult to predict how the price will be affected since the market is unpredictable however the decreased supply should increase the demand and the price.
The fork also prepares the network for PoS which should be a major improvement for Ethereum. It also proves that development for Ethereum is still active and future promising.
I personally thing Ethereum is oversold and is one of the strongest choices now specially if we look at the future. The price already recovered a little bit but I believe it’s just the beginning.
