Ethereum Classic Freezes 'Difficulty Bomb' With 'Diehard' Fork

Though hard forking can be a particularly contentious way of upgrading open blockchains, the developers behind the project are calling the effort a success thus far.

Ethereum classic developer Arvicco noted on social media that the mining hashrate is stable on the network and transactions are being transmitted normally.

Named "Diehard" after the 1980s action film, the fork packages together a few changes, including a tweak to address denial-of-service attacks that slowed down ethereum classic and its sister blockchain, ethereum, last fall.

It's one of the other upgrades included in the release that could further differentiate the blockchain from ethereum, which it split from in August over a difference in direction following the collapse of The DAO. ECIP 1010 delays the so-called "Difficulty bomb", originally added to ethereum's code in September 2015 in order to exponentially increase the difficulty of mining, or the competitive process by which new transaction blocks are added to the network.

The idea was to encourage the ecosystem to switch from the existing proof of work framework to a different consensus algorithm known as proof of stake.

Ethereum classic is delaying the "Bomb" by one year in part to give more stakeholders more time to decide which consensus algorithm to pursue.

"The outcome of it was that delaying the bomb leaves the community with [the] most open options towards [a] long-term choice of consensus mechanism," Arvicco said, noting that startup IOHK has been working on a possible proof of stake/proof of work hybrid.

On the other hand, some in the community seem unhappy that they weren't offered a chance to vote on the decision to hard fork.

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies.

CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.