There is still a pitfall in the Constantinople hard fork. Will Ethereum miners fight back with ProgPoW?

This article is from Coindesk, original author: Rachel Rose O'Leary

Translator: Moni

Original link: https://www.coindesk.com/what-to-expect-when-ethereums-constantinople-hard-fork-happens

The Ethereum Constantinople upgrade has entered the countdown, are you looking forward to it?

Hudson Jameson, head of developer relations at the Ethereum Foundation, used two words to describe the mood surrounding Ethereum’s fifth system-wide “Constantinople” upgrade: cautious and optimistic.

On Wednesday (January 16), the Constantinople hard fork upgrade will be launched, which means that the new software needs to be unilaterally installed on all nodes in the network in order for the upgrade to work as expected. However, this upgrade model has always been inherently risky. For example, if enough users disagree with the upgrade, it will cause the network to split. In fact, this has already happened once in 2016, when a controversial hard fork was executed after the collapse of the DAO, resulting in two different blockchains: Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.

Afri Schoedon, product release manager for Parity Ethereum client, said that the risk of blockchain forks is not high in itself, because the top Ethereum mining pools, which are the most critical party in blockchain forks, will basically upgrade. He said:

“Miners are ready. Only miners can split the chain.”

However, according to Peter Pratscher, CEO of top Ethereum mining company Ethermine, the adoption rate of Ethereum Constantinople upgrade is only 15.6%, but he also said that the statistics may be flawed and claimed that the adoption rate may now be close to "majority", saying:

“We hope that most nodes that have not yet updated will have done so by the time of the fork block.”

The Ethereum "Constantinople" hard fork upgrade is named after the capital of the Byzantine Empire and is one of the three parts of Metropolis. This upgrade will implement a total of five Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). Although most of the Ethereum Improvement Proposal adjustments have not caused controversy, there is still one aspect that has caused dissatisfaction in the community. The Constantinople upgrade delayed the "difficulty bomb", an algorithm that increases the difficulty of mining in Ethereum. This upgrade will reduce the difficulty of mining and will also reduce the mining rewards given to miners for protecting the network - from 3 ETH per block to 2 ETH. This move has caused dissatisfaction among some miners about the upgrade, but at the same time, some major Ethereum mining pools are more supportive of this change. Peter Pratscher commented:

"We expect the upgrade to be completed smoothly and there shouldn't be any issues."

In addition to forks, there may be other risks in system-wide network upgrades. For example, code bugs may cause the network to split, and algorithm errors may cause various unexpected events. However, developers believe that this risk is very small in the Constantinople hard fork, and they have already found loopholes in the software after multiple tests. Hudson Jameson further said:

“We have testing and monitoring software, including fork monitors and protocol fuzz testers, that continuously monitor for issues before, during, and after hard forks. We are very excited about implementing upgrades to the Ethereum protocol, but we will also prioritize network security and stability.”

Five major upgrades

Constantinople will introduce five new upgrades to the Ethereum network, with the first major upgrade focusing on designing more “people-friendly” optimization solutions for smart contracts and decentralized applications. Speaking of the overall goal of this Constantinople upgrade, Taylor Monahan, CEO of Ethereum wallet MyCrypto, said it would be an “optimization upgrade to improve the quality of smart contract development.”

Regarding another Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1283, Ethereum core developer Nick Johnson believes it is a "net gas metering" upgrade. Nick Johnson was responsible for writing this Ethereum Improvement Proposal, and he hopes to improve Ethereum's usability problem - the rising gas fees - through this Constantinople upgrade. Nick Johnson said:

“If the Constantinople hard fork upgrade is successfully completed, we can reduce unnecessary contract gas fees and make the latest coding patterns more cost-effective.”

The third upgrade, which many developers consider the most exciting change in Constantinople, is EIP 1014 Ethereum Improvement Proposal, also known as "Skinny CREATE2". The upgrade is expected to pave the way for second-layer expansion solutions such as state channels. Nick Johnson added:

“Once the Constantinople upgrade is complete, new types of state channels can be created that reduce or even eliminate on-chain deployment costs, thereby improving Ethereum’s scalability and further reducing costs and user hassles.”

According to Alexey Akhunov of Turbo Geth, EIP 1014 could affect future changes to Ethereum, including rent for storing data on the Ethereum platform, rolling costs, and even other unexpected new smart contract features. Alexey Akhunov explained:

“In this Constantinople upgrade, CREATE2 has an exciting (and potentially dangerous) improvement proposal that allows the creation of a new contract after the smart contract on the same address is destroyed. When recreating a smart contract, the same code can be used, or different code can be used (with more tricks). Basically, future smart contracts can be easily upgraded.”

Constantinople’s other two upgrades are EIP 145 and EIP 1052, two Ethereum improvement proposals that will improve the ease of use of smart contract development and simplify some operations in Ethereum code. Nick Johnson explained:

“With these two Ethereum Improvement Proposals, we can make the Ethereum blockchain easily scalable, do more things that can be done, and cover more use cases.”

Constantinople hard fork still has a "pitfall"

While most of the upgrades in the Constantinople hard fork are technically well-tested, there is one Ethereum Improvement Proposal that has caused controversy: EIP 1234, written by Afri Schoedon of Parity, which would delay the so-called “difficulty bomb” and change some technical features.

The original purpose of EIP 1234 was to ensure that Ethereum could smoothly transition to Ethereum's upcoming consensus switch, from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoW). The difficulty bomb is an algorithm that increases the time required to generate new blocks. Eventually, the difficulty bomb will force the Ethereum blockchain into a state known as the "Ice Age," during which the difficulty will reach a peak where transactions can no longer be confirmed. However, the difficulty bomb is not without benefit. It is precisely because of the increased "difficulty" of the algorithm that it encourages developers to constantly modify and optimize the code.

According to Alexey Akhunov, delaying the difficulty bomb is the most important update of the Constantinople hard fork. He said:

“The most important thing about the Constantinople hard fork upgrade is to delay the difficulty bomb, otherwise the mining difficulty will rise sharply. Frankly speaking, there are actually no other really important changes in this upgrade.”

However, there are some subtleties in delaying the difficulty bomb itself, mainly because the speed at which blocks are generated on Ethereum also determines the incentive rules for the platform's native cryptocurrency, ether. For this reason, the Constantinople block reward will be reduced from 3 ETH to 2 ETH, which has caused great controversy among miners, because miners need to rely on rewards to ensure that their Ethereum mining operations can be profitable.

However, another thing that makes miners feel "unhappy" is the emergence of more and more specialized Ethereum mining hardware. Some business Ethereum miners usually use hardware devices running GPUs to mine, rather than professional ASIC mining machines. Peter Pratscher, CEO of Ethereum mining company Ethermine, said:

“Overall, we are not looking forward to the Ethereum Constantinople hard fork because once the upgrade is completed, many miners may become unprofitable, which will have a negative impact on the security of the Ethereum network.”

Peter Pratscher said that the recent 51% computing power attack on Ethereum Classic is a typical example. The Ethereum Classic blockchain was overwhelmed by hostile computing power, posing a huge threat.

Brian Venturo from Atlantic Crypto Mining, a representative of a small mining pool, said:

“If the Constantinople hard fork upgrade implements EIP-1234, it will immediately bring huge pressure and negative impact to the mining economy.”

Will Ethereum miners fight back?

As the upcoming Constantinople hard fork will result in a reduction in Ethereum miners’ rewards, mining companies including Pratscher and Venturo have begun preparing for the next upgrade called “ProgPoW”, which is expected to block ASIC professional mining machines from the network and ensure the competitiveness of GPU mining.

So far, it is not clear whether such optimization changes will be deployed in this Constantinople upgrade. In fact, developers had "exploratory" communication at the Ethereum Developer Conference in early January this year, but no consensus was reached on the discussion of the proposal. However, even so, developers are still very confident and firmly believe that with the increase in the second-layer expansion, some technical work will be completed in the next few months, and Ethereum's final stage Serenity upgrade will be clearer.

Taking these factors into consideration, the Ethereum community has developed a mood of “cautious apprehension” about the upcoming Constantinople upgrade. Alexey Akhunov from Turbo Geth said:

“I’m a little nervous about this Constantinople hard fork upgrade because it’s hard to guess how likely it is that something will go wrong.”

According to Alexey Akhunov, in the worst case scenario, if there is a problem with the updated difficulty bomb algorithm, it may cause a network outage. In addition, some developers believe that blockchain consensus is the biggest problem of this upgrade. Taylor Monahan from MyCrypto revealed that her biggest concern is that scammers will use this Constantinople upgrade to defraud people's funds.

However, the developers believe that they have taken all possible measures to ensure that this upgrade will not be affected by potential risks, and the difficulty bomb will not only have negative effects. For example, even if some nodes have not upgraded and are still using the old Byzantine software, the difficulty bomb will take effect, making these unupdated software unusable in the next few months. If they still want to continue trading on the Ethereum blockchain, they must upgrade. For these reasons, Taylor Monahan believes that this Constantinople upgrade will definitely have a good effect, adding:

“Everyone’s hard work will pay off, and more people will benefit from the Constantinople hard fork (even if they don’t realize it yet) through cheaper smart contracts, more efficient operational code, and opening up more contract interactions.”