What Is the Ethereum London Hard Fork?

As fascinating as cryptocurrencies are, they are not necessarily perfect. So depending on the types of an upgrade, the nodes may need to undergo the updates to remain within the same blockchain. If the upgrade is backward-compatible, meaning that a node may not need to update the blockchain to remain within it, this is known as a soft fork. A hard fork is completely different and rather more complicated.

Ethereum has been through various forks throughout its history, including the most recent forks Ethereum Berlin hard fork and the upcoming Ethereum London hard fork on the mainnet. This begs the question: How sustainable is the Ethereum network going to be? How will it impact the network transaction fee that is prone to congestion on the network? Ultimately, is this upgrade doom for all “Ethereum Killers?”

In this article, we’re getting down into the nitty-gritty to find out the rationale behind the Ethereum London hard fork and to highlight some of its features.

What Is a Hard Fork?

Upgrades that aren’t backward-compatible in a cryptocurrency network are known as hard forks. If a node doesn’t upgrade its blockchain, it may no longer be a part of the network. There are several implications to the introduction of hard forks. Because soft forks are backward-compatible, a node can choose to remain in the network without the new features, even if the node isn’t satisfied with the new updates. The same cannot be said about hard forks.