The Ethereum community can be present process a tough fork at block quantity 2,675,000, which is able to doubtless happen between 15:00 and 16:00 UTC on Tuesday, November 22, 2016. A countdown timer may be seen at https://fork.codetract.io/. The Morden check community can be present process a tough fork at block no 1,885,000.

As a person, what do I have to do?

Obtain the most recent model of your Ethereum consumer:

What occurs if I don’t replace my consumer?

In case you are utilizing an Ethereum consumer that’s not up to date for the upcoming laborious fork, your consumer will sync to the pre-fork blockchain as soon as the fork happens. You can be caught on an incompatible chain following the previous guidelines and you’ll be unable to ship ether or function on the post-fork Ethereum community.

Importantly, in case your consumer is just not up to date, it additionally signifies that any transactions you make will nonetheless be prone to replay assaults.

What if I’m utilizing an internet or cell Ethereum pockets like MyEtherWallet or Jaxx?

Ethereum web sites and cell functions that mean you can retailer ether and/or make transactions are operating their very own Ethereum consumer infrastructure to facilitate their providers. Typically, you don’t want to do something for those who use a 3rd celebration net based mostly or cell Ethereum pockets. Nevertheless, it’s best to nonetheless verify together with your net or cell Ethereum pockets supplier to see what actions they’re taking to replace for the laborious fork and if they’re asking their customers to take different steps.

Specifically, it’s best to make sure that transactions are generated with the brand new replay-protected EIP 155 scheme.

What do I do if my Ethereum consumer is having bother syncing to the blockchain?

Be sure you have downloaded the most recent model of your Ethereum consumer.

Why are we proposing to laborious fork the community?

“Spurious Dragon” is the second laborious fork of the two-round laborious fork response to the DoS assaults on the Ethereum community in September and October. The earlier laborious fork (a.ok.a “Tangerine Whistle”) addressed fast community well being points as a result of assaults. The upcoming laborious fork addresses vital however much less urgent issues akin to additional tuning opcode pricing to forestall future assaults on the community, enabling “debloat” of the blockchain state, and including replay assault safety.

What adjustments are part of this tough fork?

The next Ethereum Enchancment Proposals (EIPs) describe the protocol adjustments carried out on this laborious fork.

• EIP 155: Replay assault safety – prevents transactions from one Ethereum chain from being rebroadcasted on another chain. For instance: When you ship 150 check ether to somebody from the Morden testnet, that very same transaction can’t be replayed on the primary Ethereum chain. Necessary word: EIP 155 is backwards appropriate, so transactions generated with the “pre-Spurious-Dragon” format will nonetheless be accepted. Nevertheless, to make sure you are protected towards replay assaults, you’ll nonetheless want to make use of a pockets answer that implements EIP 155.
  Remember that this backwards compatibility additionally signifies that transactions created from different Ethereum based mostly blockchains that haven’t carried out EIP 155 (akin to Ethereum Traditional) can nonetheless be replayed on the primary Ethereum chain.
• EIP 160: EXP value enhance – adjusts the worth of `EXP` opcode so it balances the worth of `EXP` with the computational complexity of the operation, basically making it tougher to decelerate the community through computationally costly contract operations.
• EIP 161: State trie clearing – makes it attainable to take away a lot of empty accounts that had been put within the state at very low value because of earlier DoS assaults. With this EIP, ’empty’ accounts are faraway from the state each time ‘touched’ by one other transaction. Removing of the empty accounts enormously reduces blockchain state measurement, which is able to present consumer optimizations akin to sooner sync occasions. The precise removing course of will start after the fork by systematically performing `CALL` to the empty accounts that had been created by the assaults.
• EIP 170: Contract code measurement restrict – adjustments the utmost code measurement {that a} contract on the blockchain can have. This replace prevents an assault state of affairs the place massive items of account code may be accessed repeatedly at a set fuel value. The utmost measurement has been set to 24576 bytes, which is bigger than any at present deployed contract.

DISCLAIMER
That is an emergent and evolving extremely technical house. When you select to implement the suggestions on this put up and proceed to take part, it’s best to ensure you perceive the way it impacts you. You need to perceive that there are dangers concerned together with however not restricted to dangers like sudden bugs. By selecting to implement these suggestions, you alone assume the dangers of the implications.