The Ethereum network has had its fair share of issues over the past few months, with the latest bug in the system casting further doubts over its future. The next hard fork – dubbed Constantinople – is designed to help increase efficiency on the Ethereum network and will help keep gas fees dow. Think of it as adding a supercharger to your car. Yet, in early testing on the Ropsten testnet it has encountered a few issues.
Constantinople has run into a consensus issue and it has rendered the Ropsten testnet unusable. Infura – a blockchain infrastructure company – said in a tweet that the testnet is completely unusable and that devs should use other testnets for the time being.
Due to a consensus issue with the Constantinople fork, Ropsten is currently not usable. The Ethereum dev community is investigating. Until further notice please utilize one of the other Ethereum testnets
— Infura (@infura_io) October 13, 2018
No Constantinople Until 2019?
Many Ethereum developers and users were hoping that the Constantinople hard work would go live towards the end of 2018. The proposed benefits of it would help rid the Ethereum network from many of its faults and bugs that it currently suffers. One of the main features is that it will help make the network more efficient and therefore faster and cheaper to use. Gas fees are easily hijacked by decentralized applications (dApps) and this bug in the system is frequently exploited by hackers.
In a flurry of Tweets, Afri Schoedon – an Ethereum dev – said that it’s unlikely that the community will see Constantinople launch in 2018 like the foundation had previously promised. Following this blockchain crippling bug, devs will be hard at work fixing it well into 2019.
no constantinople in 2018, we have to investigate
— ???? ???????? (@5chdn) October 13, 2018
Tough Time for Ethereum
Ethereum is going through a rough patch at the moment. Vitalik Buterin is reportedly planning his exit from the Ethereum Foundation, and while it’s more of a back seat rather than a total exit, tensions in the Ethereum camp are beginning to rise. In addition to its founder leaving, one of the most popular dApp explorers in MetaMask has flagged 333ETH as a scam. This combination of bad news from Ethereum looks set to cause more chaos in the markets. However, despite the disappointing news of Constantinople being delayed the price of Ethereum has risen significantly from its weekend lows.
We don’t know what went on behind the scenes of the Ropsten testnet, but we know one thing for sure – it isn’t working anymore. Ethereum devs are hard at work trying to figure out what went wrong and caused the three-way testnet hard fork. Once they figure out the issue, only then can start fixing the bugs and preparing it to be deployed on the Ethereum mainnet.
