Ethereum Istanbul Hardfork Results in Testnet Chain Split
Ethereum Istanbul Hardfork has activated two days earlier and results in the chain split of Ropsten testnet.
Miners Support the Old Chain
Community manager of the Ethereum Foundation, Hudson Jameson explained in a tweet on 30 September that there are still huge number of miners supporting the old Ropsten testnet whereas few are upgrading to the new forked chain.
Bitcoinik reported that Jameson said the implementation of Istanbul Hardfork of Ethereum on testnet chain has been postponed to early October. He added:
“For anyone listening in who doesn’t know how this works, we pick a block number that we estimate to be around the 2nd of October. However, that might be one or two days behind or forward from that date based on how fast blocks are produced between now and then.”
Blockchains are complex working and predicting their updates precisely is not possible. Jameson explained that Istanbul Hardfork arrived two days earlier because of the fast block confirmation time.
Most of the miners don’t know that Istanbul Hardfork upgraded is coming and they continue to mine the old chain whereas few miners upgraded their equipment and mine the new chain that lead to a chain split of Ropsten testnet.
Team lead at the Ethereum Foundation Péter Szilágyi tweeted on Twitter that “the Ropsten Ethereum testnet Istanbul forking is a bit unstable due to a huge miner pushing the non-forked chain.”
Jameson further explained that this is the reason why they tested the fork implementation on testnet chain. He added:
“This all plays out. It is unclear if this will have any effect on the Istanbul hard fork activation.”
