Ethereum Hard Fork: What will happen now
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In two days, Ethereum is supposed to do the hardfork. The developers want to undo the DAO debacle. We are trying to answer the most important questions about the Hardfork here.
Why is Ethereum Hardforken?
The DAO hack was not a hack from Ethereum itself, but has the potential to do great damage. In addition to the outrageous high losses that can damage the trust in Ethereum sustainably, it is particularly worried that the hackers have around 5 percent of all ether. In view of the apparently malignant intentions of the hackers to Ethereum itself and the planned change of cryptocurrency to proof-of-stake (POS), this gives the hacker a power that will be dangerous for Ethereum in the future.
For these and other reasons, the Ethereum developers have announced immediately after the DAO-Hack to make it out with a hardfork and to undo the DAO itself.
What exactly does the hardfork do?
Jeffrey Wilcke, developer of the most popular Ethereum client Geth, describes what happens to the Fork on the blog of Ethereum Foundation. Accordingly. At Block 1.920.000 are paid to a new contract in this list. From this contract, the DAO investors can deposit their DAO tokens and change them with a rate of 1: 100 to Ether.
The fork will not automatically pay the DAO investors, but they have to act afterwards to get their investment back.
When will the hardfork take place?
Block 1.920.000 is expected to be in the afternoon of Wednesday, the 20. July, found Weden. You can find a countdown on Slacknation.
Which software supports the Hardfork?
Each Ethereum client has published a version that the Hardfork consentes. According to Wilcke, GETH supports the fork by default after the choice on carbonvote clearly failed.
The graphic user interface, on the other hand, asks the update to 0.8.1 the user, whether he agrees to the Hardfork or not. To block 1.920.000 the user can still switch between the two versions at any time by addressing or selecting the “Dao-Fork” in the “Develop” menu line.
The community is behind the fork?
After everything you know, the greatest part of the community supports the Hardfork. In addition to almost all relevant Ethereum developers (Vitalik Buterin, Christoph Jentzsch, Gavin Wood, Jeffrey Wilcke and.A.) also seems to be clear to the miners, investors and stock exchanges.
So the carbonvote page enables it to be right with Ether for or against a hard fork. 87% of the ether used – or about 5 million – voted for a hardfork. 66-87 percent of the votes cast for a hardfork also fail with the mining pools ethpool, Ethermine and Dwarfpool. However, it should be noted that hardly 10 percent of the miners have chosen. Under the stock exchanges, Bitfinex as well as Polonieex have explained that they will support the dominant fork and let the old fork drop.
Polononicex will also enable users to book the ether once on the loser chain to save them.
Is there any resistance to the Hardfork?
Yes, there is also it, from the start. He manifests himself in the release of Ethereum-Classic, whose developer stands up for “decentralized, censor resistant, free of permission”. “We believe in the original version of Ethereum as a world computer that cannot be shut down and processes irreversible smart contracts.“Ethereum Classic will be a fork of Ethereum that dispenses with the Hard Fork and is working on transferring the future updates of the Ethereum developers.
A first mining pool with which Ethereum classic mines can be set up has already been set up. The decentralized stock market software Bitsquare has already announced that the trade of Ethereum-Classic will hardly be decisive in given the thin to non-existent trade volume of Bitsquarte). Bitcoin-Core developer Peter Todd also believes that he has to announce his support for Classic via Twitter. It is possible that the ideology-driven wish is to justify your own no-hardfork policy.
The fact is, however, that there is a non-insignificant obstruction against the DAO hardfork. This makes the existence of two Ethereum chains a realistic option.
Are there risks?
Should there be two Ethereum blockchains permanently after the fork, this would be an unpleasant and risky state. On the one hand, the value between the two forks will divide, which shrinks the network effect and – perhaps the worst – leads to losses among users who are unable to switch between the chains.
The “Cross Chain Replay Attacks” described by Peter Vessen could be even more dangerous. “Simply put when a valid transaction is on a fork, there is a risk that this transaction will be ‘repeated’ on the other fork and devastates there.“In particular, stock exchanges can lose massive money if you maintain the trade with both blockchains, since users can, for example, transfer payments from one chain to the other. Vessen therefore advises the community and, above all, the stock exchanges to drop the losing chain.
How do I prevent ether to lose?
This is now a rather small problem for users. Anyone who does not make or accept any transfers during the fork does not run the risk of becoming victims of any cross-chain attacks or finding their ether on the wrong chain. Just wait a few days until it is clear which blockchain wins and then also switch to these.
If there are two blockchains permanently, it is recommended to have coins on both chains. One way to achieve this is, for example, to copy the whole Ethereum drawing (hidden on Linux in Home, on Windows in User/Appdata/Roaming …) to a second hard drive, also take a manure with you, and only then switch to the fork. This should be sure to be able to select both versions in the end. If you then make a transaction with the fork version, it should not be part of the pre-fork version.
In addition, you will be able to switch between the chains.
