Why was the Ethereum Constantinople Hard Fork Delayed?

Today mark’s the date that the long-awaited Ethereum Constantinople hard fork should have taken place. An upgrade that many saw as a crucial milestone in the new crypto year and a possible reversal of the market to the bulls; an upgrade that has, sadly, been delayed last Tuesday as a crucial vulnerability was discovered. The delay was announced last Tuesday, January 15, as core developers and major players in the Ethereum community concluded that the vulnerability could not be fixed on time for the planned hard fork on block 7,080,000. The date of the new hard fork has yet to be revealed as developers and researchers are still discussing the vulnerability and its real-world impacts.

The issue did not arise from the Ethereum blockchain itself but rather in the smart contracts application and the reduced cost of gas. The issue, on EIP 1283, allowed hackers to initiate malicious attacks, due to the diminished cost of gas, also known as reentrancy attacks that would let them withdraw funds forever. The vulnerability, much like during the 2016 DAO attack, would have severely diminished the credibility and confidence in Ethereum but was hopefully avoided thanks to the vigilance of blockchain audit firm Chain Security.

This also sparked another debate as many have called for a bug bounty program to be launched so that these problems may be found and fixed in advance rather than just before a hark fork.

This concludes today’s article about the delay of the Ethereum Constantinople Hard Fork , and its issue on EIP 1283. We hope you learned a lot, enjoyed the read, and stay tuned for more great content at Bybit