Ethereum Constantinople & St. Petersburg Hard Forks
The original Ethereum Constantinople Hard Fork was due to happen on the block height #7,080,000, but it was immediately put on hold after the discovery of a potential security flaw detected on January 15th.
The Potential Problem
The planned implementation of EIP 1283 was found to make the Ethereum network vulnerable to reentrancy attack after the hard fork.
This EIP proposes net gas metering changes for SSTORE opcode, enabling new usages for contract storage, and reducing excessive gas costs where it doesn’t match how the most implementation works.
The Solution
But the development team has already delayed the hard fork a few times. If they keep stressing on fixing the problematic EIP, the Constantinople upgrade will be delayed for too long.
In order to keep up with the pace of the fast-changing blockchain industry, the team decided to execute the upgrade at the block height #7,280,000 instead, which is expected to take place around February 28, 2019.
But what about the EIP 1283?
The solution is simple. They are going to activate two upgrades at the same time: Constantinople and another one to remove the EIP 1283.
Say Hello to St. Petersburg
At the block height #7,280,000, Constantinople upgrade will be activated. Then St. Petersburg will be activated, too, at the same block height. However, St. Petersburg will prevail over Constantinople and immediately override the upgrade.
As a result, only the EIP 145, EIP 1052, EIP 1014, and EIP 1234 will be implemented to the Ethereum network.
The Bottom Line
The most concerned difficulty bomb will be delayed for 12 months after the implementation of EIP 1234. The mining rewards of each for each Ethereum block will also be reduced from 3 ETH to 2 ETH.
Before PoS (proof of stake) can be implemented on the Ethereum network, this reduction in mining reward will prevent inflation and drive the price of Ethereum back up.
We will keep you posted in time
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You can also learn more about the other EIP’s in a previous article:
https://steemit.com/blockchain/@okex-official/ethereum-constantinople-hard-fork
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