A week ago there was hope on the horizon, when the course of ethereum began to move independently of bitcoin. But that hope was brutally made small, when all coins showed their worst side in the last two days.
Less dependent on bitcoin
An upgrade called Istanbul is planned for Ethereum and this could cause the rate to become less dependent on that of bitcoin.
ETH has had a tough week. The coin peaked at around 200 euros but had to surrender 25 percent value. The currency is currently traded for around 155 euros. Many expect that the price of ether can only rise sharply for the time being, if bitcoin makes the same movement.
What is Istanbul
Before 2018, any news about upgrades to the network, the blockchain or a new partnership was reason to cheer. The course reacted immediately. That seems much less the case this year. So it’s just a matter of guessing what Istanbul will do with the race.
The expectation is that a network upgrade called Istanbul will be rolled out in the coming months. Several Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) are included in this. These are first implemented on test nets before a hard fork on the net is involved.
The upgrade contains EIPs and tackles the following; the network is becoming more energy efficient and there is better protection against denial-of-service attacks (DOS). Layer 2 solutions (one layer along the main blockchain) based on SNARK and STARK will also be introduced. Atomic swaps are also possible and the possibilities for smart contracts have been modified.
Istanbul is first tested on the networks of Ropsten and Goerli. Istanbul is then implemented on the test networks of Rinkeby and Kovan. If all this goes well then Istanbul will be launched on the mainnet in early 2020.
Buterin is enthusiastic
Vitalik Buterin, one of the great men at Ethereum, about what’s on the schedule:
“The next step is to ensure that we can maintain a public network on a scale. We are talking about possibly hundreds of thousands of nodes that merge a large number of transactions. “
“I am very enthusiastic about the possibilities that DeFi (red: decentralized finance) offers in principle. The idea that everyone, anywhere in the world, has access to a system that allows them to pay each other and choose their own financial exposure is really a powerful thing. It is something many people do not have access to. “
The time when ether rose to great heights due to ICOs has been behind us for some time. According to Martinn Young of News BTC, it is time for Ethereum to continue to develop technically and to distinguish itself from other altcoins. And if Buterin can get all noses in the same direction, 2020 may well be an interesting year.
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