The Ethereum block difficulty began to grow back in November 2016. Since then, developers have been constantly forced to carry out hard forks to keep the network up until the transition to a proof-of-stake algorithm takes place. In the lead-up to the Istanbul upgrade, implemented on Dec. 8, the Ethereum team decided again to postpone the explosion of a so-called “difficulty bomb,” which some believe may lead to the onset of an Ice Age. How can this happen and what would be the consequences if the Ethereum network froze? Difficulty bomb and Ice Age When creating Ethereum (ETH), the developers …

China’s state-backed tech workgroup has released its fifteenth blockchain technology assessment, in which it promoted Ethereum to second place after its recent hard fork. The Center for Information and Industry Development (CCID) released the list on Dec. 6, ranking 35 assets in total. In the latest rankings, EOS kept its top spot, Ethereum moved from third to second, trading places with Tron (TRX). Bitcoin’s (BTC) network is ranked ninth, while Ripple did not even make the top ten, coming in at 18th. Top 20 blockchain networks per CCID’s 15th assessment. Source: CCID Ethereum’s rise Ethereum’s promotion can be attributed with …

Following the successful Ethereum Istanbul hard fork update, several popular exchanges have announced their official support for the network upgrade. Yesterday, on Dec. 7, the Ethereum’s network saw ample collaboration between node operators and miners to update the software to support the Istanbul hard fork. Some crypto exchanges even sounded their willingness to update a few days prior to the scheduled hard fork. A widely supported hard fork Notably, Binance announced support for the upgrade on Dec. 5 and the day afterwards its U.S. subsidiary did the same. Coinbase also tweeted yesterday that Ethereum and ERC20 deposits and withdrawals have …

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Ethereum completes Istanbul hard fork It’s happened! Ethereum’s much-anticipated shift to Istanbul has been completed, and the system-wide update came into force when the network passed block #9069000 late on Saturday night. Vitalik Buterin claims capacity now has the potential to reach 3,000 transactions per second. Istanbul is designed to deliver interoperability with the privacy …

Vitalik Buterin has claimed that Ethereum will support 3,000 transactions per second after the upcoming Istanbul fork. Will this unleash a new wave of Ethereum creativity? Might we expect a surge in traffic on the Ethereum network? Could its increase influence the price of ETH? Ethereum is slow The conventional wisdom is that Ethereum is too slow. But for what purpose is it too slow? It seems to be sufficiently fast for financial services. But the mistake people are making in saying “Ethereum is slow” is misunderstanding what a great thing, counterintuitively, it is to be slow. ETH works because …

As of press time, Ethereum has passed block #9068000, putting it within 1000 blocks of the scheduled Istanbul hard fork, which should take place at around 23:30 UTC. The much-anticipated shift to Istanbul will be the Ethereum network’s first hard fork since February’s Constantinople. Both are stages of a broader phase of ongoing development that began in 2017 called Metropolis. What is changing? Cointelegraph has covered Ethereum’s ongoing developments extensively, as have the developers. Broadly speaking, Istanbul should be streamlining the network in accordance with Metropolis’s overall goals of scaling the network. Specifically, Istanbul will expand interoperability with privacy token …

Ethereum developers have proposed a hard fork, named Muir Glacier, that should address the impending Ice Age, which could cause a significant slowdown on the Ethereum mainnet. In an Ethereum improvement proposal at the end of November, Ethereum developer James Hancock wrote that the proposed Ethereum Muir Glacier hard fork would push back the mechanism, known as Ice Age. Ice Age is unnecessarily complex and confusing Ethereum’s Ice Age, also known as Difficulty Bomb, refers to the increasing hashing difficulty in the mining algorithm used to reward miners with Ether (ETH) on its blockchain. This piece of coding artificially slows …

Bitcoin.com, the Bitcoin (BTC)-related firm backed by crypto evangelist Roger Ver, is planning to launch its $200 million Bitcoin Cash (BCH) investment fund. Ver has announced the news speaking at a Bitcoin Cash meetup in London on Nov. 19, as he tweeted on Nov. 20. The event was hosted by major global crypto wallet Blockchain.com. The new Bitcoin Cash Ecosystem Fund will focus on payment solutions and non-custodial financial services for Bitcoin Cash, a cryptocurrency that emerged from a hard fork of Bitcoin in August 2017. The new fund will be investing in payment gateways and wallet acquirers According to …

Earlier this month, the Ethereum Foundation team lead Péter Szilágyi confirmed the date of the network’s upcoming upgrade, Istanbul. Ethereum’s eighth hard fork overall and the second one this year was due to take place on Dec. 4. However, on Nov. 20, per the official announcement, the date estimate was moved to around Dec. 7. Istanbul will introduce a number of improvements such as interoperability with Zcash, cheaper zero-knowledge layer two scalability solutions, and adjusted gas price for certain operations, marking another milestone along the road to Ethereum 2.0, a highly anticipated “ultimate” version of the network. How exactly does …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) failed hard fork attempt from 2017, SegWit2x, was “extremely dangerous and irresponsible,” says a CEO who was formerly one of its biggest supporters. In a series of tweets on Nov. 16, Bobby Lee admitted he was wrong to tout the long-dead Bitcoin scaling solution. Lee: “Bitcoin is the real Bitcoin” Co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange BTCC and CEO of wallet manufacturer Ballet, Lee was one of the original signatories of SegWit2x, which aimed to increase Bitcoin’s network capacity by doubling its block size to 2 megabytes. “2 years ago, I thought SegWit2x was the best path forward for Bitcoin,” …

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) miners appear to have wasted money mining 14 blocks on the wrong chain after the altcoin underwent a hard fork. According to data from monitoring resource Fork Monitor on Nov. 15, Bitcoin Cash, which itself forked off from Bitcoin (BTC) in 2017, successfully split in two once again on Friday. BitMEX: Miners are “wasting resources” Despite being broadly cleaner than its previous hard fork attempts, it soon became apparent that a large section of miners had not upgraded to the new chain. In total, miners spent resources mining 14 empty blocks on a chain that the majority …

The planned hard fork of the Bitcoin Cash network has been completed, as the first block considered invalid by the older client version was noted by BitMEX Research in a tweet on Nov. 15. Fork Monitor detected that the block at height 609,136 was considered invalid by the Bitcoin ABC 0.19.0 client. The block was accepted by Bitcoin ABC 0.20.6, confirming that the hard fork had completed as planned. The block was mined by the BTC.com pool at 13:44 UTC, with a block-size of 0.2MB, and contained 651 transactions. Older versions of Bitcoin ABC will now either remain stuck or …