Ethereum Altair upgrade launched on October 27, 2021, on Ethereum 2.0 mainnet. Is this the beginning of the most anticipated Ethereum 2.0? What changed? ChangeHero team is here to explain.
What you'll learn 👉
Key Takeaways
- The Ethereum Altair upgrade is the first planned update to the Ethereum beacon chain (Ethereum 2.0). It was launched on Oct 27, 2021, at 10:56:23 UTC and introduced some changes to consensus and rewards and punishment;
- The upgrade will not require any action from the Ethereum HODLers;
- The development news didn’t help ETH much, and the price fell below $4000 and reclaimed it at the time of writing.
Ethereum Altair Upgrade
Ethereum Foundation has so far sent our eleven upgrades to the Proof-of-Work chain, with the London hard fork being the latest. However, this has not been the case with the Proof-of-Stake Ethereum chain until recently.
Altair is the first scheduled update to the beacon chain of Ethereum, also known as Ethereum 2.0. The Altair upgrade is a hard fork and introduced some new consensus rules.
Ethereum Altair upgrade took place in epoch 74240, and the block activated on Oct 27, 2021, at 10:56:23 UTC.
Raul Jordan, Ethereum core developer, posted on Twitter that the Ethereum Altair upgrade has been successfully launched.
Changes
Ethereum Altair upgrade took place almost after a year the Beacon Chain and staking was launched. The upgrade brought several new features and rules to the Ethereum 2.0 chain.
- Light clients will now be able to participate in core consensus;
- Changes in the reward calculation;
- Strict slashing rules for those who don’t validate properly. This is done to further secure the network.
The changes will not have any impact on the end-user. ETH holders need to do nothing. You can use and trade ETH as always without any trouble.
The new rules will only affect validators and node operators. They must upgrade to the latest version of the software to keep working in the latest version of Ethereum 2.0.
While most of the network upgraded, 17.6% (at the time of writing) remained on the old chain and might suffer the consequences.
If you staked ETH and wondering what to do, there’s nothing to worry about.
The Altair upgrade does not change staking fundamentally. However, there are some changes in the calculations of rewards and punishments. Still, you cannot withdraw the staked ETH, so validators will have to wait until the merge.
While the development news can be seen as bullish, ETH fell below the psychological barrier of $4,000 on Thursday for a few hours. However, the price reclaimed $4,000 at the time of writing.
One Step Closer to Ethereum 2.0
The next major upgrade will be “The Merge”, which connects the Ethereum blockchain with Ethereum 2.0. Though there is no information on the exact dates, it is expected to happen in the first half of 2022. All in all, the Ethereum Altair upgrade is indeed the first step towards the merger with Ethereum 2.0.
Etherium Altair. For vast numbers of daily Ethereum users the only change I’ve noticed is the fucking even more consistently ridiculous gas fees. Fri/Sat/Sun nights late, at least GWEI has been predictably coming down into the 20s/30s for past several months…not now with the new fucking Altaire, Fuck You Vitalik, and maybe it’s just the fucking miners…this is embarrasing, high way robbery. Eth gas fees are now on pace to easily exceed $1B a month. This is going to cause a long lasting ripple effect similar to Youtubers, users of Twitter/Facebook who have been banned, bullied and shat upon. This is not going to help Ethereum in the long run all this blatant theft through gas fees. Someone’s gonna bitch slap Vitalik as some brunch buffet someday.