Istanbul incoming: Ethereum’s next major network upgrade is set to activate today

Ethereum’s Istanbul, theeighth major hard fork upgrade for the network, is set to activate at block 9,069,000, which should arrivelater today. The long-awaited upgrade intends to introduce six new Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) upon launch, with code changes ranging from optimizations in opcode computational costs to enhancements in the performance of layer-2 solutions usingZK-SNARKs orZK-STARKs, among others. Learn more about all six soon-to-activate proposals, as well as other pending network upgrades, from ourEthereum asset profile.

Today’s hard fork is only the first phase of Istanbul as it relates to Ethereum 1.x network, the codename given to the set of upgrades intended to improve the existing Ethereum blockchain. Of course, Ethereum is in the midst of major development sprint to build the foundation for the network’s next phase, Ethereum 2.0 (aka Serenity). But the Ethereum foundation and various developers elected to dedicate resources towards Istanbul and future Ethereum 1.x upgrades to help bridge the gap between now and the rollout of Serenity. The latest reports suggest Serenity’s final phase may not launch for another one to two years.

Why it matters:

• Of the proposals introduced by Istanbul, EIP-2028 has received the bulk of recent attention. The code change intends to reduce the gas fees for Calldata operations by a 75%, from 68 down to 16 gas per byte. This improvement directly benefits layer-2 scaling solutions of the zero knowledge variety looking to interact with the Ethereum network. In response (whether intentional or not),IDEX andMatter Labs each released prototypes of their optimistic rollup-powered, performance-friendly sidechains within the last week. Thanks to Istanbul, 2020 could finally be the year a significant percentage of transaction volume trickles up the stack while base chains like Ethereum assume a greater role as settlement layers.
• Istanbul’s later-than-expected launch should not have any impact on Ethereum 2.0 development. Serenity and Ethereum 1.x are two separate efforts conducted in parallel by a variety of (often) non-overlapping teams. In fact, Serenity development reached a new milestone yesterday as a second client added support for the live Ethereum 2.0 Sapphire testnet. A multi-client testnet more closely resembles a mainnet environment and should accelerate testing efforts. As a result, Serenity Phase 0 (the launch of the Beacon Chain) could hit its target release date of early next year.

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