At block number 12,244,000 on the Ethereum blockchain, the scheduled Berlin hard fork was performed. The update contains four prospects to enhance the existing Ethereum network and lessen fees.
Berlin’s main goal is to cut transaction fees for transactions on the network. Considering that Ethereum is in great demand with projects employing non-fungible tokens (NFT) and decentralized finance (DeFi), the network still lacks the capability to swiftly process transactions. Consequently, users are required to pay high transaction fees. Gas rates started to increase last fall and hit the highest point in February with transfer fees of 373 Gwei. After that, commissions have fallen by more than half, but they remain high.
The Berlin hard fork contains a number of Ethereum 1.0 Improvement Proposals (referred to as EIP). EIP-2565 algorithmically lowers transaction fees, EIP-2718 permits various transaction kinds to be combined, and EIP-2929 speeds up transaction administering times and curbs the possibility for denial-of-service assaults by boosting transaction fees. This rise will be partly counteracted by the EIP-2930 proposal, which establishes a new sort of transaction. It is noteworthy that today, in the context of the hard fork introduction, the Ethereum price set another record – $ 2488.
The Berlin update is lacking the “divisive” EIP-1559 proposal, which is intended to cut the supply of ETH by burning coins when forfeiting commissions. Currently, miners have a certain control on fees. Yet, once EIP-1559 is incorporated in the Ethereum software, the fee will be established by the network and burned afterward. Meanwhile, miners will still be given block rewards. Many Ethereum miners did not agree with the intended fee model. Nevertheless, the developers plan to incorporate EIP-1559 in the London hard fork, which is scheduled for July.
We remind that recently Ethereum market cap exceeded the cost of publicly traded international corporations such as Exxon Mobil, Netflix, or Coca-Cola.
