Part of the global update of the cryptocurrency Vitalik Buterin was to be held on January 16, but it was postponed again due to vulnerability. This is an important stage in the development of the coin, which will significantly affect the project
The Ethereum blockchain is constantly evolving, its launch consists of four main stages, each of which is of great importance for the platform. The first of them-Frontier, ended in 2015, after which came the next important part called Metropolis. It, in turn, consists of two global updates: Byzantium, which took place in October 2017 and Constantinople, scheduled for October last year, but postponed to January 16, 2019 due to various shortcomings.
At the moment, the date of the hard fork of the crypto currency is again unknown, it was once again canceled due to a vulnerability in one of the updates. Vitalik Buterin proposed to abandon the term hard fork due to the fact that many users began to wait for the separation of the chain and the emergence of new coins, and this was used by scammers. Instead, the Creator of Ethereum advised to call Constantinople an update to avoid confusion and clarify concepts.
The main changes in the Ethereum network that will occur as a result of Constantinople:
EIP 1234-reward for miners will be reduced from three to two ETH
EIP 145-blockchain efficiency and speed will be increased by adding Bitwise switching mechanisms to the Ethereum virtual machine
EIP 1052-the network will start to consume less energy
EIP 1283-reduced the need to use the internal currency of the Ethereum — Gas blockchain (vulnerability in this update did not allow to activate the hard fork in January)
The complexity bomb has been postponed for 18 months. This is the transition from the algorithm Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake, which does not depend on mining, the network will become unsuitable for digital money miners
Security
In addition to the vulnerabilities in the Constantinople update, due to which the activation of the hardfock had to be postponed twice, many users fear for the safety of the cryptocurrency network in the future. Reducing the reward for mining a block will lead to a decline in the profitability of mining Ethereum, which is when the value of the cryptocurrency at $120 and it's low.
This, in turn, will lead to the fall of the network hashrate, it will be easier for attackers to attack 51% on the blockchain coins. At the beginning of 2019, a major Ethereum Classic project faced a similar problem, the damage exceeded $1 million, and the trust of users was partially lost.
The next stage in the development of the cryptocurrency network — Serenity, should be held eight months later Constantinople. After that, the altcoin blockchain will have to be as simple, secure and stable as possible.