Ethereum Receives Blowback after New Year's Hard Fork Jonathan Ganor 2019-12-24 04:32:36 913 views

Can Ethereum's Latest Upgrade Be Successful Despite an Odd Date Choice?

It seems that Ethereum had a bit of a rough 2019. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum did not regain any real value this year, it even lost value in BTC/ETH pairs. It was trading at $129 on December 25th, 2018 and oddly enough it is trading at $129 today as well. In addition to this Ethereum and its creator, Vitalik Buterin have been facing rather constant criticism on Twitter.

Furthermore, Ethereum has gone through a series of hard forks this year. These were meant to improve the security and efficiency of their blockchain. This includes the Constantinople & more recent Istanbul hard fork which took place roughly two weeks ago. It is important to note that no new currencies were airdropped as a result of these upgrades.

Introducing Ethereum's Muir Glacier

As result of a somewhat lack luster Istanbul hard fork, the Ethereum team scheduled yet another hard fork. This new hard fork is called Muir Glacier and is scheduled on the day following New Years eve, January 1st.

Oddly enough this new hard fork does not follow the standard naming process for Ethereum. Its forks and upgrades started with frontier in 2015 and later Homestead and Metropolis in 2016 & 2017. In 2017, Byzantium was introduced followed by Constantinople and Istanbul in 2019. Muir Glacier isn't a community or city but a remote and desolate glacier in Alaska.

Some have criticized Ethereum on social media for scheduling the fork on a universal day off. This includes Co-founder of the Aragon Project.

I am trying hard not to be negative about Ethereum lately...



But who the fuck decided to do a hard fork on a day that is an almost universal holiday?



Picking cool days is great when you are a core dev, but now someone from my team has to work on a day that they were free. https://t.co/xZmCPj5Y5r â Jorge Izquierdo ð¦ (@izqui9) December 23, 2019

Many in the cryptocurrency exchanges, mining and possibly other niches might have to work on a day off as result. Moreover, scheduling a hard fork on such a day could increase chances that it will not be successful. Node operators could hypothetically be to hung-over to make the necessary updates required.

While it may be an odd choice of date by the Ethereum team, time will tell if Muir Glacier will be a success. Let's hope 2020 will be a better year for Ethereum than 2019 for the Ethereum team's sake.