The Ethereum network has been walking to its 2.0 upgrade for a pretty long period of time. Still, the development team of the market’s largest blockchain has released an important announcement on March 8th that pertains to its upcoming ETH Berlin Hard Fork.
A hard fork, in technical terms, is a radical change in a blockchain’s operational protocol that would require the consensus of all network participants to be valid. The change automatically refers to blocks and transactions on the network, either making previous ones valid or invalid, depending on the consensus reached by the community. A hard fork also entails a change in tokens that operate on the network, requiring users to receive new ones after the hard fork to continue making use of them, since the old fork will no longer be compatible.
The Ethereum Berlin Hard Fork
A common question regarding the issue of the ETH network’s upgrades is represented in search engine queries — what is a hard fork and why is it on Ethereum? In fact, the Berlin Hard Fork of ETH is slated to go live on the Ethereum mainnet at block 12,244,000, which was to be mined at around April 15th. The main features of the Berlin Hard Fork are the following Ethereum Improvement Protocols:
A reduction in gas costs and associated transaction fees, a function that allows users to combine transactions, a separate feature that increases transaction fees in exchange for faster processing, and another feature that reduces the risk of receiving invalid smart contracts.
Together, the combination of the given features will allow the network to transition to the next important milestone — the London Hard Fork. The launch of the Berlin Hard Fork is an important step in the development of the Ethereum network as a whole, as it means that the development team is working and the long-awaited ETH 2.0 upgrade is in sight.
Thanks for a clear explanation and further news of the London fork! Those gas fees kill the joy of Ethereum.