Here’s what we need to know about Ethereum’s Istanbul hard fork (with a user guide)

The eighth Ethereum network upgrade, Istanbul Hard Fork, is scheduled for December 6, 2019. For readers who are not familiar with the term "hard fork", it can be considered as a "network upgrade". The final exact upgrade date may vary due to dynamic block times and time zones. Therefore, users can track the countdown to Istanbul Hard Fork on Etherscan.

Istanbul hard fork is one of the upgrades in the Eth1.x phase. After Eth1.x, Serenity (ETH2.0) will come, and the Ethereum consensus mechanism will also change from the current PoW (proof of work) to PoS (proof of stake). The currently determined Istanbul upgrade block height is #9069000, and the hard fork is expected to be carried out on December 6, 2019 (Friday).

• EIP-152: Add Blake2 compression function F precompilation. This EIP will enable BLAKE2b hash functions and other higher-order 64-bit BLAKE2 variants to run cheaply on the EVM, thereby improving the interoperability of Ethereum with Zcash and other PoW cryptocurrencies based on the Equihash algorithm.

• EIP-1108: Since the current cost of elliptic curve algorithm precompiles is too high, this EIP plans to reduce the gas cost of alt_bn128 precompiles. Repricing precompiles will greatly benefit many privacy solutions and scaling solutions on Ethereum. [5]

• EIP-1344: Currently, there is no specification on how to set the chain ID for a specific network, which relies on manual selection by client implementers and the blockchain community. This EIP proposes to use chain IDs to prevent replay attacks between different chains, and having the same possibility inside smart contracts would be helpful when dealing with signatures (especially layer 2 signature schemes).

• EIP-1844: The rapid growth of Ethereum's state has caused some opcodes to be more resource-intensive than before. Therefore, this EIP reprices some opcodes to achieve a good balance between gas expenditure and resource consumption.

• EIP-2028: Calling on-chain data requires paying gas on the Ethereum network. Part of this EIP will reduce the cost from the current 68 gas/byte to 16 gas/byte, which will help increase bandwidth so that more data can be accommodated in one block.

• EIP-2200: Provides a structured definition of net gas metering changes for the SSTORE opcode, enabling new contract storage usages and reducing excessive gas costs for most executions.

• Hold or trade ETH via a mobile wallet like MetaMask or Coinbase Wallet;

• Hold ETH on exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, etc.

• Hold ETH via a hardware wallet like Ledger or Trezor.

Node Operator

Ethereum is a decentralized peer-to-peer network, so any user currently running Ethereum infrastructure needs to update their software to a "fork-ready" Ethereum client version, and the update should be completed before December 1st.

If you are running Infura, no changes are required. Infura is ready to go, and no action is required on your part. Infura has been running reliable Ethereum infrastructure for over three years and has proven itself capable of handling large-scale updates during network hard forks. Infura safeguards the upgrade process, so you can continue to build software with confidence.

The following software versions were released in late September. If you "miss the boat" and fail to upgrade your software in time, you will no longer be able to accurately obtain the source of blockchain data. If you miss this fork, your node will need to resynchronize with the Ethereum blockchain, which may take hours or even days.

How a node becomes "fork-ready":

• Check the client page regularly for software update announcements;

• Check the fork update information to determine if your application requires any action or if there will be any impact to your users;

• Update your node before the fork block height is reached.

Phase 1 of Serenity will launch the Beacon chain, a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain that will mark Ethereum’s final transition from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.