Ethereum is expected to upgrade to Istanbul on December 7th

According to the information released by the Ethereum Foundation's official website today, the Ethereum network will be upgraded at a block height of 9,069,000, which is expected to occur around December 7, 2019 (Saturday). The exact date may vary. Change in block time and time zone).

After completing this upgrade, Ethereum will welcome these major changes:

1. Keep the cost of the opcode consistent with its computational cost and increase the resistance to denial of service attacks.
2. Improve the throughput of Layer 2 solutions based on SNARKs and STARKs;
3. Enable Ethereum and Zcash to interoperate;
4. Allow the contract to introduce more creative functions.

Please note that the relevant client nodes will be upgraded by Sunday, December 1, 2019.

For this upgrade, Ethernodes.org provides statistics on the Istanbul node and a countdown page. You can also monitor network upgrades in real time at http://forkmon.ethdevops.io/.

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1. What is the Istanbul upgrade?

Istanbul is the name of the Ethereum network upgrade. The previous network upgrades were named after other names such as Constantinople, Spurious Dragon and Byzantium.

2. What do I need to do as an Ethereum user or an Ether holder?

If you are an exchange (such as Coinbase, Kraken or Coin), a web wallet service (such as Metamask, MyCrypto or MyTherWallet), a mobile wallet service (such as Coinbase wallet, Status.im or Trust wallet) or a hardware wallet (such as Ledger, Trezor) Or KeepKey) users, then you do not need to do anything unless the relevant service provider notices.

3. What do I need to do as a node operator or miner?

Download the latest version of the Ethereum client, which includes:

1. The latest geth client (v1.9.7) ;
2. The latest Parity client (v2.5.10-stable) ;
3. The latest Besu client (v1.3.4) ;
4. The latest Nethermind client (v1.1.8) ;
5. The latest ethereumJS client (v4.0.2) ;
6. The latest Trinity client (v0.1.0-alpha.30) ;
7. The latest Aleth client (v1.7.1) ;

Note: The Harmony (ethereumJ) client does not currently support this Istanbul upgrade. Besu is an Ethereum client written in Java that is compatible with the main network .

4. What happens if I am a miner or node operator and I am not involved in the upgrade?

If you are using an Ethereum client that has not been updated to the latest version (listed above), your client will sync to the forked chain after the upgrade. According to the old rules, you will be stuck in an incompatible chain, and you will not be able to send Ethereum or operate on the upgraded Ethereum network.

5. What does the Ethereum network upgrade mean?

Network upgrades are changes to the underlying Ethereum protocol, creating new rules to improve the system. The decentralized nature of the blockchain system makes network upgrades more difficult. Network upgrades in the blockchain require collaboration and communication with the community and developers of various Ethereum clients to successfully complete the upgrade.

6. What happens during the network upgrade process?

After the community has reached a consensus on what changes should be included in the upgrade, the changes will be written to various Ethereum clients (such as geth, Parity, and Nethermind). Protocol changes are activated when a specific block number occurs. Any node that has not been upgraded to the new rule set will be dropped on the old chain, which will continue the previous old rules.

7. What changes will Istanbul bring to Ethereum?

The changes implemented in Istanbul are defined using the Ethereum Improvement Recommendation (EIP), which describes the standards of the Ethereum platform, including core protocol specifications, client APIs, and contract standards. Considering the development of the Ethereum community in the past year, this upgrade is the largest community proposal in the history of Ethereum. More than 30 EIPs have been proposed for this upgrade. Developers have carried out each of these EIPs. Discussions and debates, after careful consideration, of which six EIPs are considered appropriate, are :

1, EIP-152: Add Blake2 compression function "F" precompilation

Add the ability to validate Equihash PoW in an Ethereum contract. This will enable relay and atomic swap transactions between Zcash and Ethereum.

2, EIP-1108: reduce alt_bn128 pre-compiled gas cost

This makes zk-SNARKs cheaper, allowing for cheaper extension and privacy applications. See the Matter labs, Aztec Protocol, Rollup, and Zether examples.

3, EIP-1344: ChainID opcode

Add a way to track the contract's Ethereum chain.

4. EIP-1884: Repricing of the opcode

Change the cost of some EVM opcodes to prevent spam attacks and better balance the amount of computation in each block. The amount that must be paid for each operation in Ethereum is usually matched to the amount of calculation required for the operation. This change increases the gas overhead of computationally intensive opcodes (SLOAD, BALANCE, and EXTCODEHASH), which are currently cheap.

5, EIP-2028: reduce transaction data gas cost

zk-SNARKs and zk-STARKs are cheaper by reducing the cost of calling data in transactions. This will increase the throughput of the Layer 2 solution. See Starkware for an example.

6, EIP-2200: net gas metering for SSTORE operation

Change the cost calculations stored in the EVM and enable the contract to introduce new functions, including re-entry locks and same-contract multi-send. Relevant information:

1. https://blog.ethereum.org/2019/11/20/ethereum-istanbul-upgrade-announcement/

2, https://medium.com/ethereum-cat-herders/istanbul-testnets-are-coming-53973bcea7df

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