Ethereum [ETH] Constantinople hard fork: A total of 852 clients are ready

Ethereum [ETH] seems to be enjoying the bull run as it prepares itself for the upcoming hard fork. Additionally, the coin started the new year by regaining its position in the market as the second-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization. Currently, it is one of the highest gainers in the market with a double-digit rise in the past seven days.

This could be the effect of the much-awaited hard fork in the community, the Constantinople hard fork. The hard fork will be going live on block 7080000, around January 16, 2018. At present, according to Ethernodes, Ethereum clients ready for the Constantinople is recorded to be 852 out of 7,683 [includes both Geth and Parity Clients].

Afri Schoedon, an Ethereum developer said:

“Ethereum Constantinople Client Adoption Coverage: 10.2% – Upgrade your clients as soon as possible! – Geth 1.8.20 – Parity Ethereum 2.1.10 or 2.2.5”

The initial announcement of the hard fork was made in mid-2017, with the decision of the hard fork taken during a developer and stakeholder meeting, with this being a step towards making the network more efficient and less expensive. Additionally, the Constantinople hard fork was set to be launched in late 2018 but was delayed due to unexpected problems encountered during the launch of the hard fork on Ropsten TestNet, resulting in a three-way fork.

The main implementation of the hard fork proposes is the reduction of the block mining reward issuance. Post the hard fork, this would effectively be cut down to 2 ETH. Additionally, the hard fork would also be delaying the difficulty bomb for a period of 12 months. The other upgrade includes improving the efficiency of the network and performance, and faster network. The upgrade would also be looking into optimizing the developers’ experience and cut down the overall cost of the developers.

According to CoinMarketCap, at press time, Ethereum was trading at $152.77, with a market cap of $15.91 billion. The coin has a trade volume of E$2.76 billion and has surged by over 25% in the past seven days.