After several delays, Ethereum’s Constantinople hard fork has a new date. The network upgrade has been scheduled for February 27. This is the same date when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will have to take a final decision on the Bitcoin ETF proposal made by VanEck and SolidX. The decision to delay once again the Constantinople hard fork is related to a vulnerability discovered a few days ago in one of the codes.
Ethereum’s Constantinople Delayed Until February 27
Ethereum (ETH) had a very long week. The Constantinople upgrade was scheduled for January 16 but some issues delayed the official launching just a few hours before the programmed fork. According to a smart contract security company called ChainSecurity, there were some potential vulnerabilities that could have affected users.
Back on Friday, several Ethereum developers decided to set up a call and take a conservative path. This is why they announced that the Constantinople upgrade will be held as soon as February 27. There were other Ethereum developers that wanted the upgrade to happen faster rather than in February. Nevertheless, the decision was taken for February 27.
This is very interesting since on February 27 the SEC has the last chance to approve or reject the Bitcoin ETF proposal presented by VanEck and SolidX. Clearly, these days will be turbulent for the market. Just a few days before the hard fork, Ethereum started to grow faster than other altcoins. Since the hard fork was delayed, the market dropped hard during a few hours.
There are some experts that believe that the hard fork is going to happen at block 7.28 million. However, this is not yet confirmed. Ethereum developers are going to inform the exact number as soon as in two weeks.
The next Ethereum hard fork is planned for October 2019. Nevertheless, there is also a possibility for an earlier upgrade during the year.
This is not the first time that the Constantinople Hard Fork is delayed. Back in November 2018, the network was ideally going to be implementing the Constantinople upgrade. Nonetheless, it was not possible for the community to implement it on time. This is why they have decided to move it to early 2019.
One of the main changes that the Constantinople hard fork is going to change is the ETH rewards. Currently, miners receive 3 ETH every time they find a block. Now, they will be receiving 2 ETH. This will reduce the new supply and reduce the selling pressure in the network.
At the time of writing, Ethereum is the third largest cryptocurrency and it has a market cap of $13.06 billion. Each coin can be purchased for $124.
