Through the current developments of Bitcoin and Bitcoin-Cash, Ethereum moved somewhat into the background in the crypto-community.
Now the Ethereum Developers announced the next big update "Metropolis" will be carried out at the end of september 2017.
Like Bitcoin this will happen through a HardFork.
The planned stations of Ethereum can be found in the Ethereum Roadmap.
https://www.ethnews.com/ethereums-road-map-for-2017
Since the beginning of the year, the Ethereum community is waiting for a release date of this Hardfork,
because Metropolis will implement new features for Ethereum.
At the moment the following innovations are known for Metropolis:
In Metropolis the basis for the so-called zk-snarks is to be laid.
These "Zero Knowledge Proofs" will allow the Ethereum Blockchain to perform anonymous transactions on a higher level in the future.
A proximity to Zcash is not surprising, as Ethereum chief developer Buterin and Wilcox work together on Zcash's anonymity.
The upgrade provides easier programming for programmers.
Smartcontracts should also be simplified.
Gas is to be adjusted when a transaction is executed, to settle the bill and thus save costs.
A kind of masking can now be used to "determine" the address to which you have a private key.
Through this type of assignment, security enthusiasts get additional security for their accounts.
This development is interesting because it provides protection against attacks by quantum computers.
In addition, a so-called Difficulty-Bomb is to be ignited.
It will cause a severe difficulty of the mining.
This is only an intermediate step for the the gradual replacement from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.
This is the so called Ethereum "Ice Age".
(read more about this in my earlier Post:
https://steemit.com/ethereum/@joshbreslauer/ethereum-is-entering-the-ice-age)
Although there were reports that the price might fall, it's not clear of how the market will react.
On the contrary, there has been a strong increase in Ethereum miners in the past, which was motivated by an increased price.
As with past upgrades, which were introduced by hard-forks, the positive development could also trigger a price increase.
After all, Ethereum would have reached the penultimate stage !
Serenity will follow and bring the breakthrough to the mainstream, according to Ethereum's Roadmap.
learn more about Metropolis:
