Ethereum’s London hard fork set to go live on August 4
Ethereum’s much-anticipated London hard fork is expected to launch on August 4.
According to a recent blog post by Ethereum developer Tim Beiko, the upgrade will go live at block 12,965,000 between 13:00 UTC and 17:00 UTC.
The London hard fork was earlier expected to launch in July. However, this has been moved to next month. Even at that, the launch is still tentative as it could be delayed depending on the success of the Rinkeby testnet.
The upcoming hard fork is the latest upgrade on the popular blockchain network as it transitions from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). The upgrade has already been successfully released on three testnets – Ropsten, Goerli and Rinkeby.
The London upgrade will feature five Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), namely EIP-3198, EIP-3529, EIP-3541, and most notably EIP-1559 and EIP-3554, which contribute massively to the improved efficiency of the network.
The announcement comes on the heel of a 19% decline in Ethereum’s total hash rate last month. This follows a similar drop in Bitcoin’s hash rate since the Chinese government began clamping down on crypto mining operations. Recall that the International Blockchain Consulting (IBC) Group recently shut down all its Bitcoin and Ethereum mining facilities in China.
