As agreed at previous meetings, Istanbul will be activated in two stages. The first of them will include all six changes and, according to the current plan, will be launched in the main network Ethereum in October, and the second - in the first quarter of next year. The second phase will include changes that still require improvement and testing. This includes a new ProgPoW mining algorithm.
"We have broken Istanbul into two parts, - explained the developer Peter Silagyi. - One of them is ready to launch in a few weeks, and the second one contains two really large EIPs (note - suggestions for improving Ethereum), which would be nice to have, but they require work that can not be done within 2-3 weeks.
The first part of Istanbul will be the eighth hard fork in the Ethereum network. It is expected to expand the possibilities of interaction with anonymous alto-koin Zcash and help protect the network from replay attacks, as well as other improvements.
Developers of large Ethereum clients, such as Geth and Parity, now have exactly one week to integrate the approved EIP into their software and prepare for the launch of the full version of the code in the test network.
The update was supposed to be activated in the Ropsten test network this Wednesday, but Siladei said the deadline was postponed by 2 weeks as it was necessary to complete the EIP. According to the updated data, the hard fork in the test network will take place on September 4. However, the date may be revised again.
"When we were doing the previous hard forks and all the changes were implemented in the clients, we had just months to test before running the test network. This time we just prepared the EIP worksheet and want to do the forecasted work in 2 weeks? Bold," added Szilagyi.
Other developers supported this opinion and decided to discuss the date of hard fork activation in the test network next week. This step will be the last one before the launch of the update in the main Ethereum network. As with any other hard fork, miners have to update their software, otherwise they risk staying in the old chain.
Security and stability are key issues when it comes to hard fork on the core network, so a release on the test network is critical to successfully activating an upgrade on the core network," said Ethereum Foundation Community Relations Manager Hudson Jameson. - The Ethereum developers are excited to have a hard fork in the Ropsten test network to make sure everything goes according to plan.
What do you think steemians , will hardfork help ethereum and price will increase? or bitcoin still will be as strong as always ?