Ethereum’s London Upgrade Deployed To Final Testnet, Hard Fork Planned For Fourth August

The much-awaited London hard fork of the Ethereum network is moving closer as the code was deployed to the final testnet this week.

Tim Beiko, an Ethereum developer, posted the testnet update confirming that the code has now been successfully deployed to all 3 testnets.

The mainnet launch will take place at block number 12965000 which puts the projected date at 4th August. The first block was produced on the Ropsten testnet on 24th June, and the Goerli testnet deployed the hard fork on 30th June. Rinkeby is the last testing stage before the mainnet goes live.

ConsenSys confirmed the aforementioned development in a guide to the upgrade posted last month. They also suggested that the fees may decrease nominally. The guide mentioned,

“As a side effect of a more predictable base fee, EIP-1559 may lead to some reduction in gas prices if we assume that fee predictability means users will overpay for gas less frequently.”

Notably, the aforementioned upgrade will witness some of the transaction fees burned, which will have an effect on the supply of ETH over time. At press time, over eighty nine thousand ETH had been burnt on the testnets, nominally valued at around one hundred and eighty five million dollars at present prices.

The deflationary characteristics of the system may be magnified when the blockchain shifts from mining to POS consensus in the latter half of next year.