A new Ethereum (ETH) fork, dubbed ‘London,’ is expected to activate in the next 24 hours. It brings a few Network Updates that pave the way towards the upcoming ETH 2.0 network upgrade. Here are all the modifications that will be part of this fork:
- EIP-1559: Fee market change for ETH 1.0 chain
- EIP-3198: BASEFEE opcode
- EIP-3529: Reduction in refunds
- EIP-3541: Reject new contracts starting with the 0xEF byte
- EIP-3554: Difficulty Bomb Delay to December 1st, 2021
What is this fork about?
Out of all the EIPs (Ethereum Improvement Proposals), EIP-1559 is the most significant because it changes the way Ethereum transaction miner fees are calculated and distributed. Before London, miners received 100% of transaction mining fees. Post-fork, miners will start to receive only a portion, called a priority fee, which the user can add on top of a base fee calculated by the network.
Once the update is live and wallet providers implement the new transaction model, mining fees will be calculated through a base fee amount that is adjusted up and down by the network protocol based on network congestion. When the network exceeds the target per-block gas usage (mining fee), the base fee increases a little; it also decreases when the network capacity is below target.
The intention of this mechanism is to make wallet providers estimate transaction fees in a highly reliable model, ensuring user transactions go through in a reasonable time even during network activity peaks. This EIP also ensures that miners are discouraged from manipulating the transaction fee because the base fee, which is calculated automatically by the network, will be burned and not retained by the miners themselves.
What does this fork mean for Jaxx Liberty users?
We have updated our Ethereum nodes to the latest blockchain software in order to support the upcoming fork and ensure Jaxx Liberty users will continue uninterrupted use of their wallets. We will also closely monitor the fork implementation when it goes live on August 5th, to verify Jaxx Liberty wallet’s continued service.
Currently, Jaxx Liberty users are able to select from three Mining Fee levels for their outgoing transactions: Lower, Typical, and Higher (these can be found in the app’s MENU > Customization > Mining fees section). These mechanisms have been tested and will continue to function correctly after the London fork comes into effect
Once we are sure that everything is working as expected with EIP-1559, we will adopt the new fee model (i.e., the base fee structure and a priority fee levels) into a future Jaxx Liberty application update.
Keep close to our Social Channels (Twitter / Reddit / Blog) for updates on when the new fee model will be implemented.
PS. Often, when a blockchain has a hard fork, the event is associated with a new digital asset being born. The London fork has reached network consensus and thus will not be creating any additional blockchains. There are no new (mirrored) digital assets created following this hard fork.
All Ethereum blockchain EIPs can be found here: https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/tree/master/EIPS