What is the simple explanation for the Ethereum fork?

As Ethereum prepares for a "merger," an upgrade that will shift its network from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, some miners are preparing for a hard fork. A hard fork, or various blockchain splits, would allow miners to break away from the Ethereum chain after the merger and attempt to continue the proof-of-work chain known as "ETHPoW." The motivations of miners here are not surprising: once the merger happens and Ethereum switches to proof-of-stake, they will lose their source of revenue. In fact, in the face of such a tough battle, this kind of hard fork is inevitable. The Ethereum fork is imminent, but many investors still don’t know what the Ethereum fork means? Let me give you a simple explanation of the Ethereum fork.

What does Ethereum fork mean?

Blockchain is a decentralized system. When upgrading, if the community's opinions cannot be reached, a fork will occur. The Ethereum fork, also known as the "London Hard Fork," represents the Ethereum Update and Ethereum 1559 Improvement Proposal (EIP-1559) and will directly affect policies regarding network transaction fees. In the future, every transaction will be from today's A portion of transaction fees are "burned" in ETH, thereby reducing the stock of circulating assets and giving users the option to include hints to encourage faster confirmations based on network demand. In order for updates to occur, the network needs to reach consensus, just like Bitcoin.

According to data from the Etherchain BlockExplorer burn tracker, more than 2 ETH have been burned so far. Although the word "burn" sounds dramatic, it actually just refers to removing the currency from circulation. process. To destroy a cryptocurrency, you need to send the asset to an address that no one can access. Unless someone can guess the access key to the private key (which is almost impossible), no one will be able to spend it. Coin.

The impact of Ethereum forks

Ethereum is a decentralized open source blockchain system, and its exclusive cryptocurrency is Ether (ETH). As other crypto As a currency platform, Ethereum also has the function of executing decentralized smart contracts. According to data from CoinMarketCap, although Ether has experienced a decline, it has accumulated a large number of users and has become the second most popular digital currency in the world. One.

The world is buzzing about Ethereum’s “Hard Fork London,” an update to Ethereum that is part of the transitional journey toward Ethereum 2.0. Ethereum 2.0 (also known as Serenity) is an upgraded version of Ethereum that aims to improve its efficiency, number of transactions per minute, scalability, and other important aspects to ensure the stable operation and security of transactions. ETH2 is committed to improving the performance of ETH and further promoting the area The evolution of blockchain technology.

With all these moves and updates to Ethereum, there are different situations for ETH holders:

If you are just holding, trading or With your ETH, no action is required. In this case, your deposit will automatically be transferred to Eth2 in Phase 1.5.

If you have 32ETH to deposit, you can participate in Phase 0 at any time Start betting on the new Ethereum 2.0 without waiting for phase 1.5. You can apply to become a validator.

The above article is my popular explanation of what Ethereum forks mean. .There are two main important differences between the two versions. Eth2 uses a different mechanism than ETH, proof of stake and sharding to get things done. The developers of the Ethereum ecosystem introduced the beacon chain, which is a coordination mechanism , is responsible for creating new blocks in the chain, ensuring their validity and rewarding validators to keep the network secure. The proof-of-stake consensus mechanism is essentially a method for the network to agree on a single fact, and it is up to the controlling entity to decide the source of the truth. In the long run, PoS should make the network more secure by making it harder to hack the system or manipulate data in any way.

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