Woohoo! Calling all fellow believers in Ethereum... we've finally made it to the London upgrade for the Ethereum mainnet! After what seems like decades of waiting for its' arrival, the London upgrade will be launched between August 3rd - August 5th, 2021 at block 12,965,000.
I know I said "seems like decades of waiting", but this is in no way bashing Ethereum or the core developers at all. I cannot even begin to fathom the amount of work and knowledge it takes to make this necessary step to the network! All I can say is bravo and all I can do is inform everyone reading this about it. So sit back, grab a drink, and let's take a look at the key upgrades coming to Ethereum sooner than we expected!
EIP-1559 is one of the most often talked about upgrades within this London upgrade. This particular upgrade focuses on the way Ethereum is traded amongst users and should lower transaction fees and times while also burning a specific amount of ETH.
With this new algorithm, there is a set base fee for the amount of gas required to complete a transaction. This base fee per gas used is then burned into Ethereum hell, potentially creating a deflationary effect over time. You will be able to include a "tip", or priority fee, if you want your transactions to be completed faster. Hopefully, this will aid in lowering the absurdly high ETH fees we have been encountering for quite some time.
EIP-3554 is set out to delay the difficulty bomb that is currently in place until the first week of December 2021. Sounds intense, being a bomb and all, but nothing is going to explode so don't worry. The difficulty bomb simply refers to the rising complexity of mining in the current Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus that Ethereum currently operates on.
Delaying this difficulty bomb will assist both users and miners alike. It should assist EIP-1559 in lowering the transaction times, making Ethereum more scalable and ergonomic when conducting business. This will also ensure that block rewards remain consistent for the miners and won't begin to evaporate. Miners will be rewarded less in the future, however, as Ethereum 2.0 is on the horizon and will be introducing a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus.
There are 3 other upgrades included in the London mainnet launch. They are less talked about because they are more back-of-house and we won't physically see these changes within the way Ethereum operates ourselves. These upgrades are EIP-3198, EIP-3529, and EIP-3541.
As for me, I always get excited when there are upgrades to blockchain networks. Since Ethereum is one of the main networks within the crypto space, I am a little more excited about this upgrade! We will just have to wait and see if this upgrade is all it's made out to be. This has been highly anticipated and it's finally here!
Are you looking forward to these upgrades for the Ethereum network?
Leave a comment and let everyone know!
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