Ethereum Classic (ETC) has announced an upcoming fork called Agharta.
The hard fork will take place on January 12th, 2020 and will be an update of the Ethereum Classic protocol that will not result in the splitting of the chain or the birth of a new cryptocurrency.
Indeed, there is no group within the ETC ecosystem that objects to this update, as it is simply a routine update of the protocol.
In any case, node operators will have to update their software, because the old versions will no longer be compatible with the new updated protocol.
Agharta adds to the ETC protocol the operating codes of the Constantinople ETH fork, including the CREATE2 operating code, which allows the use of many implementations previously not possible on ETC, including state channels.
However, according to the dashboard created specifically to monitor the protocol update, most nodes are not ready yet, as they haven’t updated their software yet.
The good news is that 45% of the nodes are already updated and during the next few days the number of updated nodes will most likely exceed the number of outdated nodes.
The same is also true for exchanges: so far only three have already made it known that they support the fork:
- Bitflyer,
- Coinbase,
- KuCoin.
Others will probably follow in the coming days.
In addition, ETC Labs founder James Wo has stated that Ethereum Classic will remain true to the Proof-of-Work consensus protocol and that unlike ETH there are no plans to switch to Proof-of-Stake.
The reason for this is the scepticism towards PoS expressed by Wo, according to whom PoW guarantees a completely decentralized blockchain, while PoS could allow someone to potentially accumulate more than 50% of the supply, thereby rendering the blockchain more centralized.
