Ethereum’s Constantinople Hard Fork Could Happen by January 2019

Proclaimed world computer and renowned smart contract cryptocurrency Ethereum could see their Constantinople hard fork happening as early as January 16, 2019. The Constantinople upgrade was formerly delayed after developers found some bugs on the testnet platform.

However, after further testing and development, a new timeline for the upgrade was proposed in a recent Ethereum core developer meeting. As noted in the meeting minutes on Github, 2 dates were suggested for the fork, either January 12 or January 16.

While these dates have been mentioned, they are simply a suggestion and are not set in stone.

Péter Szilágyi, a core developer at Ethereum, said:

We can just say mid-January, it doesn’t make a difference if we decide on a date or not. We can always postpone.

Therefore, while we have a new date to watch, it may still be further delayed. Developers have mentioned before that if any additional problems arise, they will further extend the date of the hard fork.

Ethereum Developer Thoughts on Constantinople Upgrade

During the developer meeting, independent core developer Lane Rettig went on to explain his research done on various aspects of Ethereum’s difficulty bomb.

He said that the block times will begin to increase in January, and that the difficulty bomb is expected to reach 30-second block times in May 2019. He also noted that 30-second block times could happen in April 2019 if hashpower declines by 20-25%.

For those of you who don’t know what the “difficulty bomb” is, it’s an algorithm in Ethereum’s main code that increases the difficulty of mining blocks on the Ethereum network. It makes mining steadily more difficult over time and is designed to encourage regular network upgrades.

What is Constantinople?

Constantinople is a backwards-incompatible upgrade, which is why the Ethereum blockchain must undergo a hard fork. The upgrade will include 5 different Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs).

Each of the EIPs will include changes to Ethereum’s code that induce better processing times for developers, fairer pricing structures, important scaling solutions, and changes to Ethereum’s economic policy.

For more information about the technicalities and what effects Constantinople has on Ethereum, check out our recent post on the topic here.

Market Update and the Future of Ethereum

As the date for the Constantinople upgrade has been established once again, Ethereum fans and investors have something to look forward to this holiday season.

It appears that the market has yet to react the announcement. At the time of writing, the price of Ethereum is stable at around $210, and has been so for the past week.

As investors learn of the Constantinople upgrade and we approach the hard fork’s date, we will have to keep a close eye on the price of Ethereum.

After all, Constantinople is a major upgrade to Ethereum’s code and could spur some newfound interest from investors, thus increasing the price.

What do you think of Constantinople? Do you think the upgrade will honor its newly-made tentative date? Let us know in the comment section below.