It’s January 2019, and the popular cryptocurrency blockchain, Ethereum will implement a hardfork which has been dubbed Constantinople by ETH founder Vitalic Buterin will take place on the popular crypto blockchain. The hardfork has already seen support from major key exchanges such as the likes of Binance, Houbi and many others.

The Constantinople hardfork is set to bring about these new coins:

Ethereum Classic Vision (ETCV)

Ethereum Nowa Fork (ETN)

Ethereum Classic Vision (ETCV)

Ethereum Classic Vision will be a new currency coming from the Ethereum hardfork, leveraging the best of Ethereum Classic (ETC) and ETH. Individual miners will have the benefit of profits as mining costs will be reduced because simple hardware could be used to mine. Also notable is the fact that every HODler will receive 3 ETCV coins for every ETH in their private wallets.

Ethereum Nowa Fork (ETN)

Users will also receive 1 ETN for each ETH coin in their wallets from this fork. This new project will also see the development of an ETN desktop wallet by the second quarter of 2019 with mobile wallets for Android & iOS expected to be ready by the third and fourth quarter.

Ethereum Constantinople Hard Fork

This is the big one. The hardfork all ETH investors and crypto enthusiasts have been waiting for. This hardfork is set to happen between the 14th and 18th of January. Also known as the 2nd phase of the Metropolis project and is set to be built upon 7080000 blocks which will vastly improve efficiency and performance. This will be the hardfork in which the ETH network will become faster and far less costly to run. It’s also a necessary step to transition the network from Proof of Work (PoW) to that of the Proof of Stake (PoS) protocol (Casper update). However, it must also be noted that this hardfork could become bathed in controversy as it will decrease miners rewards from 3 ETH to 2 ETH.

Here is a breakdown of the updates to be found in Constantinople:

EIP 145:

This upgrade will efficiently process and detail all information processed on the ETH blockchain which has been dubbed bitwise shifting. It’s a first for ETH as it will mean the network will use 10 times less gas than before ultimately leading to fewer costs on smart contracts.

EIP 1052:

This will optimise all large scale code being executed on the ETH network. It also brings about unique code adoption which will ultimately make other contract verification easier and efficient.

EIP 1283:

The pricing method will become fairer and simpler with regards to contract storage (SSTORE opcode) and will also lower gas costs, and new uses would be enabled for data storage.

EIP 1014:

Vitalik Buterin himself created this scaling solution which is based upon off-chain transactions and state channels similar to that of the Bitcoin Lightning Network which will also ultimately improve the performance of the network.

EIP 1234:

Lastly, this update is one that might spark the aforementioned controversy as it will be responsible for the reduction in block mining rewards. This is also going to delay the difficulty bomb by 12 months. This difficulty bomb is, however, the most crucial aspect of Constantinople as it was initially intended to make the transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake smooth. The difficulty bomb is an algorithm which incrementally increases the time the network takes to produce new blocks eventually forcing the network into a state known as the “ice age” where the difficulty to produce new blocks becomes so high that new transactions are no longer able to be confirmed.

The Impact of Constantinople On The Cryptocurrency World:

The Constantinople ETH hardfork is set to be the biggest and most awaited forks of 2019. It could quite possibly have a notable impact on the price of ETH as it will see the transformation of the Ethereum network into a new and improved version which will ultimately help it grow. This could lead to the ETH price vastly increasing which other cryptocurrencies could suffer a downfall for a short period during the hard forks.

We’ve seen this happen this before, for example during the Bitcoin Cash hard fork, but can the same be said for ETH? Let us know your thoughts by commenting below.

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