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Review ETH "difficulty bomb" development history

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What will happen to Ethereum Arrow Glacier upgrade?

Article On the History of "Difficulty Bomb" and Upgrading Of Ethereum Arrow Glacier

Source: Odaily Planet

Arrow Glacier is the third network upgrade of the Ethereum network proof of work planned for 2021. Earlier this year, the Ethereum main network successfully deployed 4 EIP in Berlin in April and 5 EIP in London in August.

Arrow Glacier is tentatively scheduled for completion on December 8, 2021.

How will Arrow Glacier be upgraded?

Arrow Glacier is another network upgrade similar to Muir Glacier. This will include only an improved proposal to push the difficulty bomb until next summer to ensure that the chain does not freeze, aka the "ice age".

Ip-4345: Difficulty bomb delayed to June 2022

The EIP proposal pushes back the total number of bomb defections in London by 10.7 million blocks, an increase of one million blocks from the previous delay. The nuclear bomb could appear by June 2022.

Tim Beiko originally proposed the EIP proposal on October 5, proposing to push the number of bombs to 10.5 million blocks until May 2022. However, during subsequent further discussions at AllCoreDevs, it was decided to move the bomb to next summer.

The reasonable confidence of the core developers to merge and upgrade by next summer is undoubtedly a consideration. On top of that, Thomas Jay Rush's article Adventures In Difficulty Provides a better argument for how far bombs should be set, and helps justify the delay In removing them from the original plan. The Ethereum customer team wants to avoid organizing another boycott when the next major upgrade takes place.

The history of difficulty bombs

The difficulty bomb is a set of codes added to the Ethereum blockchain to multiply the difficulty levels and make it hard for miners to keep up. The blocking time will increase and the blockchain will freeze. It's a very steep exponential curve; It's flat for a long time, and then when the bomb "goes off," it quickly comes into play.

Why add difficulty bombs in the first place?

The difficulty adjustment process was originally intended to facilitate the transition to proof of equity. Over time, it gained additional properties that forced those who wanted to continue running Ethereum to upgrade their nodes. That means staying on the old chain is not an option.

Timeline and associated EIP

一文介绍「难度炸弹」的历史和以太坊 Arrow Glacier 升级

November 2015: EIP-2: Homestead Hard-fork Changes Changes to the pre-Homestead difficulty adjustment algorithm.

April 2016: IP-100: Changed the difficulty adjustment to target average block generation time, including terts, updated the difficulty adjustment algorithm to target a constant average block generation rate, including terts, thus ensuring a highly predictable release rate that cannot be increased by manipulating the terts rate.

June 2016: IP-649: The Metropolis Difficulty bomb delay and block rewards are reduced, delaying the difficulty bomb for about a year and a half, and reducing block rewards using the first part of the Metropolis fork Byzantium.

July 2018: IP-1234: Constantinople Difficulty Bomb delay and Block rewards Tweaks delayed the difficulty bomb by about 12 months and reduced block rewards through the Constantinople fork, the second part of the Metropolis fork.

November 2019: EIP-2384: Muir Glacier Difficulty bomb delay, postponing the difficulty bomb to the next 4,000,000 block (~611 days).

May 2021: IP-3554: Difficulty bomb delayed until December 2021. This EIP was deployed in August with the London Upgrade to delay the difficulty bomb so that it could show effect in the first week of December 2021.

October 2021: IP-4345: Difficulty bomb delayed until June 2022. This EIP pushes the difficulty bomb to 10,700,000 blocks behind the actual number of blocks. Most likely, it will be activated on the Ethereum main network on December 8, 2021.

What do I need to do?

If you are running any number of Ethereum PoW nodes, it is strongly recommended to upgrade the nodes with the latest client version prior to Arrow Glacier's upgrade activation date. Stay tuned to the Ethereum Foundation's announcement blog for more information.

Source:https://medium.com/ethereum-cat-herders/ethereum-arrow-glacier-upgrade-e8d20fa4c002