Ethereum Developers Discuss Hard Forks and Block Issuance Reductions

On Aug. 24, Ethereum core developers held a publicly streamed meeting on YouTube, briefly discussing updates for the world's second-largest cryptocurrency network and focusing on several specific agendas.

Presiding over the meeting was Hudson Jameson of the Ethereum Foundation, who discussed the process of no-proof blockchain protocols and its implementation on Ethereum clients with developers.

The developers highlighted that the third week of August saw several new features released for the Ethereum protocol, excluding an unstable update requiring a "Huge miner rewrite." The mining issue is expected to be fixed by Aug. 27, with developers raring to "Have the whole thing completed."

A developer stated many delays could be beneficial for the system instead of minor delays causing several hard forks.

Interestingly, all of the developers decided to release a new hard fork every eight months following the launch of Constantinople.

The idea of a six-month hard fork was rejected, citing increased work pressure on developers.

While the stark lack of a decision-making body was observed in the meeting, the developers spent substantial time discussing block issuance and block reward-a much-touched upon subject recently.

Meeting attendee Brian Venturo, co-founder and CTO of Atlantic Crypto, asked developers to commit to deciding a hard cap on the total supply of ether.

Xin Xu, CEO of Ethereum mining firm Sparkpool, cautioned developers against taking hasty moves, citing the network security stands that would be impacted in the case of significant reduction.

Toward the end of the meeting, the developers failed to agree on a common consent, with Jameson asking participants to "Continue discussions on social media" and gather community perspectives for the EIP proposals before the next meeting, which is scheduled for Aug. 31.Cover Photo by Lurm on Unsplash.