With billions of dollars on the line, all eyes will be on ethereum tomorrow as it seeks to swiftly implement its first leg-up into the Metrolopolis update: Byzantium.
So far, while optimism remains sound, there seems to be two questions continuing to linger within the community’s minds: Will all software users upgrade to the updated blockchain? Or will a new, competing token be created?
For this reason, the market is patiently watching and waiting to see when ethereum hits block number 4,370,000, scheduled to occur tomorrow around 6:00 UTC (October 16, 2017).
Byzantium, being the first part of the all-encompassing update, Metropolis, will make the blockchain much faster and lighter, paving the way for increased support of commericial decentalized application (dApps), while enhancing network anonimity.
Despite these major features, etheruem developers are quite optimistic on the upcoming implementation of the Byzantium code. Although developers had to remove a few sofware bugs in the days leading up to the network alteration, confidence remains that the upgrade will be smooth.
Nonetheless, investors want to stay updated on the possible upcoming forking event, so here’s how track Byzantium in real time:
Fork Countdown
While many have been claiming the Byzantium update will occur on “this day” or “that day”, the true metric for coordinating the event is by block numbers.
Currently, the ethereum blockchain is on block number 4,368,549, and as stated previously, the Byzantium code will be integrated around 4,370,000.
Therefore, no one truly knows exactly when the hard fork will occur.
However, that doesn’t mean there’s no way of tracking it.
CodeTract, a singapore-based smart contract company, has released a fork countdown which tracks ethereums current block number; showing how many blocks remain, and an estimate as to how much time is left until the fork occurs.
Mining Hashrate
Once the fork occurs (if it does), software users will want to track how much of the current ethereum ecosystem moves over, and how quickly they do so.
This is an important metric to track; as long as miners continue to mine the old version of ethereum (the current version), it will remain operational (and relatively valuable).
Nonetheless, developers aren’t heading into the event blindfolded — the Byzantium code has already gone through testing to experiment how the fork would play out. Encouragingly, earlier this week, all miners on the test version of the update made the migration, displaying a sense of optimism for the new code.
The best way to track the mining data is on the Ethereum Foundation website, which will show the percentage of miners moving to the new blockchain and remaining on the old one.
Nodes
However, miners aren’t the only ones anxiously preparing for the update; developers, users, and corporations running ethereum nodes (which store full copies of the ledger) also need to upgrade their software for the upcoming hard-fork.
A great tool to track this metric is Ether Nodes, which shows how many node operators are currently running clients compatible with Byzantium.
Some of the most popular ethereum clients, such as Geth and Parity, have already released versions of their software ready for network update.
As of right now, 60% of Geth nodes have already upgraded to the hard-fork compatible version, while only 27% of Parity nodes have done so as well. With under a day left until the upgrade, most node operators still need to swap over to their fork-ready client versions.
Price
Ofcourse, a great incentive to track all of this data is for Ether, the native digital asset of the ethereum blockchain. As we all may know, the upcoming event may serve as a catalyst to skyrocket Ether’s price to new highs. However, if hiccups are discovered and negative news is released, it may also cause its value to decline.
Therefore, to stay tuned with ethereum’s price action at all times of the day, tune-in to @TheCoinEconomy on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TradingView, and StockTwits. We will be performing real-time price alerts and trend analysis’ so you can stay updated at all times before the fork.
Conclusion
Thank you all for reading, and I hope this article gave you some valuable isnight as to all thats currently going on with ethereum’s long-anticipated network upgrade.
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