Ethereum network will be undergoing a hard fork today between 12:00 and 13:00 UTC and has outlined the implications in its blog post.
Hard fork, a change to the underlying Ethereum protocol, will create new rules to improve the system. Ethereum users are required to update, failing which they will be stuck on an incompatible chain following the old rules. If a user is using an Ethereum client which is not updated for the upcoming hard fork, the client will sync to the pre-fork blockchain after the fork occurs. Ethereum users can download the latest version of their Ethereum client.
There will be two hard forks, each addressing a different problem arisen from the DoS attacks. The first hard fork is set to occur at block number 2463000 and is meant to address "urgent health issues" concerning underpriced operation codes. This hard fork will adjust the price of underpriced op-codes involved in the attack.
The first hard fork is likely to be followed by second shortly that is aimed at reverting the current “state-bloat” introduced by the attacks. The second hard fork will address various less urgent matters like removing empty accounts which the attacker used to flood the Ethereum network, and which caused the size of the blockchain to inflate, balance, storage, among others.
However, the blog added, “The second hard fork is still being discussed.”
There is likely to be a “clean-up period” after the implementation of second hard fork during which, there may be delays and difficulties processing transactions and syncing until the blockchain size has been completely debloated.
The complete blog post on upcoming Ethereum hard fork can be accessed here.
