Ethereum Classic Successfully Disarms the ‘Difficulty Bomb’

Ethereum Classic was launched in a fork back in 2016 as a result of the lost funds following a hacker attack on the DAO (smart contract funding project). Some community members believed the fork was needed to reverse the transaction and return the digital assets to Ethereum’s users. On the other side, other users were against the process which created a gap and led to the two versions of the blockchain, as we know them today.

Ethereum’s transition to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm recently started. It doesn’t require mining and incorporates a feature that makes mining and awards receipt harder, which on its own pushes developers to move to PoS.

Despite that many believe that the Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm is the most decentralized way to achieve block validation consensus, Ethereum Classic’s developers are not planning to go forward with it. They have scheduled the ECIP-1041 update, that took place through a fork on the 5,900,000 block.

Now that the ‘difficult bomb’ has been removed through the fork, miners can easily collect their rewards. Furthermore, the Ethereum Classic’s team stated that most nodes upgraded the fork before it took place. The upgrade is expected to reduce the time needed for the creation of a block.

The fork, which has been in discussion since 2016, caused no significant change in market cap or currency value.

Block 6,100,000 was the last safe block to implement ECIP-1041, The fork is reported to have achieved a smooth implementation, without any issues.