Ethereum Delays Its Istanbul Hard Fork To October Due To Several EIP Proposals

Ethereum (ETH) will be experiencing the Istanbul hard fork as soon as early October. This is according to Hudson Jameson, the community manager of the Ethereum Foundation. As reported by Cointelegraph, Jameson explained that the testnet launch of the hard fork has been already scheduled for October 2nd. Nevertheless, he has also said that the hard fork could happen one or two days before or after the stipulated date. 

Ethereum Delays Istanbul Hard Fork

The Ethereum community has been discussing how to improve the network and which Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) were going to be implemented. After months of talks, meetings and calls, the team decided to schedule the activation of the Istanbul hard fork to early October. 

On the matter, Mr. Jameson commented:

“For anyone listening in who doesn’t know how this works, we pick a block number that we estimate to be around the 2nd of October. However, that might be one or two days behind or forward from that date based on how fast blocks are produced between now and then.”

As we wrote a few weeks ago, Ethereum core developers announced that they were postponing the released of the Programmatic Proof-of-Work (ProgPoW) to the first quarter of 2020. At that time, they explained that there were going to be two different releases, one in October and the second one during the first quarter of 2020. 

The decision to move the testnet activation to October 2 is related to a large number of Ethereum Improvement Proposals that were submitted for review. According to CoinDesk, of the 30 EIPs presented by developers, just six of them were finally accepted for inclusion in Istanbul. 

Moreover, eight of these EIPs have been planned for a new system upgrade called “Berlin.” Thus, enthusiasts will have to wait for a long time before enjoying all of the EIPs proposed. Furthermore, mainnet activation is also expected to be postponed until November this year after the close of Devcon. 

Ethereum is one of the largest cryptocurrency networks and digital currencies in the market. Indeed, after Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum has a market capitalization of $18.5 million. At the same time, the virtual currency has a price of $172 and it became one of the most recognized blockchains in the world. Although there are many new competitors in the industry, Ethereum remains as the preferred digital network to launch projects and provide services to companies.