Ethereum, the most used blockchain in the world, will have a major update between 3 and 5 August. Named London, is a hard fork (i.e. a forced change that everyone must accept), and comes about 4 months after the previous one, Berlin. The update will go online by changing some features present in five Ethereum improvement proposals (called Eip), some in development for months and others for years. The most significant, the Eip-1559, will bring major changes in the structure relating to the commissions that users pay to execute transactions, but the other four proposals will also introduce significant changes. And many practical repercussions, given that Ethereum’s native token, Ether, is the second by capitalization value after Bitcoin.
Sponsor dell’Inter
What is Socios, the app that sells the digital coins of football teams
by Giacomo Barbieri
Eip-1559, change to the commissions
The 1559 proposal has garnered a lot of support, but also sparked a lot of discussions: it provides for the addition of a basic fee for each transaction on the network, while now the commission is always dynamic and based on an auction mechanism, which varies according to the congestion and volatility of Ether, the currency used to pay commissions. This change it could lead users to pay less on average for each transaction, because it allows you to know in advance how much you will have to pay for a given operation. The reduction is significant, but not revolutionary, as stated by Tim Belko, developer of Ethereum: “Think of a 20 percent reduction, not 20 times”.
More importantly, these basic commissions will no longer be paid to miners, i.e. computers that maintain the network with mathematical calculations, but will be burned. Ether is an unlimited circulation coin (there is no limit to how many there can be), so having a mechanism that in fact continuously removes money from the market creates what in the economy is defined as a deflationary pressure, in short, tends to make the good that is burned more scarce. The consequence? TO equal demand (i.e. usage), Ether may increase in value more often than it has so far.
Eip-3198, the sister of 1559
The 3198 proposal extends functionality of 1559 also to smart contracts, i.e. smart contracts that operate as an app on the network, sending and receiving data and money. In this way, the so-called dapps (decentralized apps, a set of smart contracts that communicate with each other on the same site) can be more efficient in the costs of their operations.
Eip-3529, refunds canceled
While proposal 1559 has been the most discussed, 3529 is the one that will have the most impact, despite attracting little attention, because it removes commission refunds for some operations on the network. The feature was implemented to allow users and apps to receive refunds after clearing code online (for example, deleting obsolete smart contracts), but very little has been used in this sense: many have exploited the situation to flood Ethereum with transactions that carried data of zero value when the fees were low, and then request a refund when they got high, profiting from it. Delete this possibility it will reduce profit opportunities and make the network cleaner and less congested.
Tutorial
How to create an NFT and how to sell it online
by Emanuele Capone
Eip-3541, space for the future
The 3541 is a proposal to reserve space on the network for new types of smart contracts in the future: it has no immediate value, but the effects could be seen in the long term.
Eip-3554, the Difficulty Bomb
Proposal 3554 does not include a feature, but postpones the Difficulty Bomb that should have gone off in August, postponing it to December. The Difficulty Bomb is a feature developed in 2015 to incentivize miners to upgrade to Ethereum 2.0. With the Bomb of Difficulty the computational power required to solve a block and with the same power increases exponentially, there would therefore be a slowdown of the network: today Ethereum, through miners, solves a new block every 13 seconds on average. With the Bomb, the time would go up to 20 seconds, a 50 percent increase.
All these changes are applied to make the as smooth and painless as possible transition, for users, developers and miners, to Eth 2.0, the new generation of Ethereum network which is expected to see the light in late 2022. The development of this new network is parallel to Ethereum, and therefore the current changes will be irrelevant once the new network is operational.
.