The developers consider that the rollout on the Ropsten testnet was a success. The EIP-1559 update emerges as a possible solution to the high fees on the network.
The Ethereum smart contracts network is currently preparing for its upcoming upgrade. The Ethereum Foundation said there is already a block to activate the improvements to the London hard fork.
The organization announced that EIPs (Ethereum Improvement Proposals) would hit the mainnet at block 12,965,000. The programmers estimate that the event will occur between August 3rd and 5th, that is, in just over two weeks.
The developers successfully deployed and tested EIPs on the Ropsten testnet before revealing when London will occur. The improvements to the Ethereum network will appear on the main blockchain. Therefore, users must upgrade their nodes to the latest versions of their clients.
Node operators will need to upgrade the version of the clients they use to make them compatible with the London hard fork. According to Tim Beiko, representative of the foundation, London supports several versions on the Ethereum mainnet. He refers to the programs go-ethereum (1.10.5), Nethermind (1.10.77), Erigon (2021.07.03-alpha), Besu (21.7.1), OpenEthereum (v3.3.0-rc.4) and EthereumJS (VM, v5.5.0).
If the behavior of the network persists, ethernodes.org estimates that the upgrade would occur on August 5th. Currently, the chain is at block 12,832,209, so there would still be around 132,790 blocks to process.
Strikingly, only 9.7% of the nodes have upgraded to the most recent versions of their clients. About 200 active nodes have installed the software and configured their computers for the upcoming upgrade.
The Ethereum Network Will Reduce Fees After the London Hard Fork
One of the most awaited upgrades or forks is London, which contains the EIP-1559 and five other improvements. The proposal changes the way of paying fees on the network, which miners criticize and users support.
The decrease in fees could negatively affect the income of miners but could benefit the users. The latter will pay a base fee (a part of which will burn) for each transaction while miners receive a tip.
The implementation of London will theoretically cause gas paid in operations to decrease. Furthermore, it would turn Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency, Ether, into an asset with deflationary characteristics.
Few Know These Benefits of the EIP-1559 on Ethereum
In early July, developer Evan Van Ness wrote about the benefits of implementing the EIP-1559 on Ethereum.
The expert highlights that the EIP-1559 allows taking gas fees mainly away from the user. He adds that the wallets will take care of this automatically, so users only have to pay the base fee.
According to the specialist, the novelty will benefit both users and developers of decentralized applications. The latter would have to deal with many frustrated users when their transactions get stuck.
The EIP-1559 will also help Ethereum rollups, increasing scalability in the network and allowing reducing fee payments. Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin is optimistic about those developments and believes they will be critical to the network.
Van Ness also believes that the EIP-1559 would make the network more secure, which seems to be the point everyone misses. He specifies that such an implementation helps fight denial-of-service (DOS) attacks in the long run.
By Alexander Salazar
