At 22:00 on January 18th, Beijing time, Ethereum core developers including Vitalik Buterin, Martin Holste Swende, Afri Schoedon and Peter Szilagyi held a conference call to discuss the Constantinople hard fork.
According to Ethereum developersPéter Szilágyisecondary title
Ethereum double fork
“We will carry out the Constantinople hard fork and the ConstantinopleFix fork on the Ethereum mainnet (mainnet), and will implement the Constantinople hard fork on the test network ( testnet) to carry out the Constantinople corrective fork, which is the so-called double fork.” Martin Holst Swende, director of client and security of Ethereum Geth, told Odaily.
Ethereum has always had two networks - the mainnet and the testnet. The so-called test network is used to simulate the behavior of the main network, and its function is the same as that of the main network. Therefore, developers can develop and test their own smart contracts, issue coins, etc. on the test network as an environmental assessment before going to the chain. Conversely, when the mainnet makes any major changes to the Ethereum protocol, its testing is primarily done on these testnets.
The three most common testnets for Ethereum are: Ropsten, Kovan, and Rinkeby. Both the Ropsten and Rinkby testnets have undergone a hard fork of Constantinople before, but due toEIP-1283 ProposalBlockXLab
(picture fromBlockXLab）
So, on last night's conference call,Peter Szilagyi It is proposed that Ethereum carry out a "double fork": that is, to carry out the established Constantinople fork first, and then amend it, add a prohibited item, and remove the problematic EIP-1283 proposal.
BlockXLab
(picture fromBlockXLab）
Based on EIP 1087 written by Johnson, EIP 1283 adjusts the pricing method of SSTORE opcode, which mainly benefits smart contract developers by introducing a fairer pricing method for data storage changes. But in the early hours of January 16, the smart contract audit companyChainSecuritysecondary title
Summary of other issues
Will the new fork cause problems again? What should I do if something goes wrong? Peter Szilagyi said in the Ethereum core developer community that they have designed a backup plan D; but if plan D goes wrong again, they have not designed a copy of the copy. "As for the specific content of plan D, Peter Szilagyi did not disclose.
image description
(The picture comes from the Ethereum core developer community)
Since the double fork proposal was proposed by Peter Szilagyi, many community members called this fork "Peter's fork".
Community member Martin Holst Swende told Odaily that he thinks it should not be called a "hard fork", because the hard fork sounds like the community overthrows the consensus and redesigns the rules, and the hard fork will also be used by some criminals. New currency, so "Network Upgrade" is recommended.
In this regard, Martin Holst Swende believes that as a technician, he doesn't care what his name is. "Of course, you can choose whatever name you want, that's not the point."
Regarding the vulnerable EIP-1283 proposal, Martin Holst Swende said that the community has proposed 5 or 6 solutions, but the developers have not yet figured out which solution to use, so they can only be eliminated. "We haven't decided which (solution) we prefer now, there is nothing to rush."
In Martin's view, the most urgent thing should be to solve the difficulty bomb problem, and this needs to start the Constantinople fork as soon as possible. Due to the long-term activation of the difficulty bomb, Ethereum's current network congestion time has increased by 9% compared with the established "ice age", although the impact on ordinary users is not obvious.
(Odily Note: Difficulty bomb is a term that refers to the increase in the time required to mine a new block on the Ethereum blockchain as mining difficulty increases. Mine can be mined, not profitable. Different versions of the Ethereum blockchain are taking various measures to circumvent this problem.
postscript
postscript
Ethereum was originally scheduled to carry out the Constantinople hard fork on the 708,000th, but it was postponed due to the "reentrancy attack" vulnerability in the EIP-1283 proposal. In the past three days, many developers have discussed and offered suggestions in the core developer community in order to fix this vulnerability. At present, the specific engineering matters of the fork are just suggestions and have not been finalized.
"We are open source, although many people say that we are inefficient, but I like this atmosphere." Martin Holste Swende said.
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I am Odaily reporter Qin Xiaofeng (WeChat: pnjun0811), welcome to communicate, break the news, and learn blockchain together.
