What is Ethereum Berlin hard fork of April 2021? And London hard fork? Table of Contents
Hard Fork of Ethereum Network
After some delay, Ethereum‘s long-awaited Berlin update was set to launch in April, and it improved the efficiency of its gas rates.
In addition to certain improvements in gas rates for contracts, this hard fork includes some complementary measures to protect against DDoS, or distributed denial of service attacks.
The proposed Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) updates appear to have been removed.
Berlin was originally scheduled for June or July 2020, but the developers delayed the changes due to fears surrounding the centralization of the full Geth client, from which most Ethereum nodes run.
The programmers were also concerned about Geth’s “critical dependency”.
Thus Berlin, the tentative Ethereum update, was officially scheduled to be activated on the mainnet on April 14, during the production time of block 12,244,000.
Since the exact block production period may vary, it has been recommended that Ethereum node operators proceed with the update several days before the scheduled date.
What is the Ethereum Berlin hard fork?
The Berlin hard fork had already been deployed on various testnets during the month of March and contains various EIPs (Ethereum Enhancement Protocols).
The IAS in question are:
- EIP-2565 (ModExp gas cost)
- EIP-2929 (increase in gas cost for state access opcodes)
- EIP-2718 (introduction of a new type of transaction)
- EIP-2930 (optional access lists )
Thanks to the combination of these protocols, the network now offers greater security.
Likewise, certain processes that until now have been considered too expensive due to their gas costs were adjusted to their value.
The risk of accidental bankruptcy of smart contracts has also been reduced.
How to buy Ethereum with a Debit/Credit card?
What’s the change with Ethereum Berlin Hard Fork?
Before the Ethereum 2.0 update and proof-of-stake migration comes, the current Ethereum blockchain will have other updates.
Berlin is followed by London, scheduled for July 2021.
It will include the EIP-1559 protocol, an update that seeks to solve the problems associated with Ethereum transaction fees that have been worrying the community so much.
Both the London hard fork and the EIP-1559 protocol will be a significant improvement for Ethereum, as they are expected to significantly reduce the number of outstanding transaction fees that users will have to pay when using the network.
Basic rates will be applied to the network, so users should see a general reduction in transaction fees.
After the London fork, each time a transaction takes place on the Ethereum network, Ether will be burned, thus reducing gas rates and the supply of ETH, which is expected to increase the value of ETH in the long term and fix the problem.
How do Ethereum, Ether and Smart Contracts work?
Proof of Work vs. Proof of Stake
Berlin and London are updates to Ethereum 1.0, which has yet to join the Beacon Chain, an ongoing phase of ETH 2.0 with which Ethereum will go fully into the proof-of-stake protocol.
According to Ethereum developers, ETH 2.0 is scheduled to be ready in 2021.
However, until then, Ethereum as we know it (based on a proof-of-work model) is still in the improvement phase.
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