28.03.2024

Ethereum Classic Successfully Implements Atlantis Hard Fork

As such, ETC successfully performed the Atlantis hard fork in accordance with previously estimated time – between Sept. 12 and Sept. 13, 2019 – at block height 8,772,000.

As ETC Labs told Cointelegraph in June: “The community has had a number of meetings to discuss timing, scope and involvement, and we have decided on the direction and timing of the Atlantis release.”

The team behind Ethereum Classic (ETC) has activated the Atlantis hard fork aimed at the improvement of the altcoin’s functionality and compatibility with Ethereum (ETH).

The news was announced in a Twitter post by ETC Director of Developer Relations, Yaz Khoury on Sept 12. Khoury congratulated the project with the development, saying:

“Congratulations @eth_classic on the successful activation of the Atlantis Hardfork! Was one of the longest debates to reach consensus along with a lot of the immutability politics Learned a lot about the beauty of decentralization and a distributed community.”

Going according to plan

This hard fork is meant to improve security while taking into account the community’s concerns. It is also considered a no-rush update that will ensure the compatibility of ETC with Ethereum, making it easier to collaborate with sibling blockchains.

As reported in June, developers and contributors considered putting the hard fork at block number 8.75 million, predicting it to run on September 15. However, ETC Labs subsequently moved to increase the block number in order to have the projected update during the week, when more involved parties are more likely to be present to discover and deal with any issues that may arise.

Support from industry players

Following the hard fork announcement, ETC has received support from an array of industry players, including cryptocurrency exchange OKEx. The exchanges revealed its support on Sept. 10, also warning that it will handle related technical issues and resume services once the ETC mainnet is stable.

Yesterday, cryptocurrency trading platform Bitfinex announced that it will support the Atlantis as well.

Ethereum Classic Successfully Executes ‘Atlantis’ Hard Fork

Ethereum classic has successfully enacted a system-wide software upgrade as part of a bid to increase its interoperability with ethereum, the blockchain from the blockchain that split from it in 2016.

Dubbed “Atlantis”, the hard fork requires all software users to upgrade their clients in order to stay within the rules of the network. According to a release by ethereum classic startup Ethereum Classic Labs, 10 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) were included in Atlantis to improve stability and performance and add opcodes, precompiled contracts, zk-SNARKs and enhanced security.

“And we are on Atlantis. Congratulations, everyone”, said hard fork coordinator Afri Schoedon during a public call, while ETC Cooperative director of developer relations Yaz Khoury said on Twitter that this fork saw “one of the longest debates to reach consensus along with a lot of the immutability politics.” He added:

“Learned a lot about the beauty of decentralization and a distributed community.”

Previously slated for this summer, Atlantis was postponed over disagreements, particularly over EIP 170.

No single actor coordinated the hard fork. Rather, ETC Labs worked with Chainsafe System and ETC Cooperative, among other community members, on the hard fork.

As of earlier this week, some 60 percent of nodes and over 75 percent of hashing power had confirmed the upgrade. Major exchanges Coinbase, Poloniex, Binance, Bittrex, Kraken, Shapeshift and OKEx confirmed with ETC Labs that they have updated their software to support Atlantis.

Speaking with CoinDesk, ETC Lab’s CEO Terry Culver said Atlantis signals a desire to work with ethereum. Many of Atlantis’ EIPs have been on ethereum for years and should allow for more crossover between the platforms, especially for dapps.

“The hard fork clearly shows we are committed to compatibly and working with ethereum”, Culver said. “What we would like to do is find ways to make the two chains support one another.”

Ethereum classic is 2016 hard fork of ethereum following The DAO, a hacked funding mechanism causing a rift in the cryptocurrencies community. The projects remain separate, Culver told CoinDesk, but they still share many of the same goals.

While the hard fork was postponed, the process wasn’t contentious, Culver said, adding:

“We believe in the strength of the public blockchain. It’s really built on the strength for the community.”

In the hours leading up to the hard fork, Digital Currency Group founder and CEO Barry Silbert dropped into a public Discord group for the ethereum classic community, joking that he was “looking forward to getting his Ethereum Classic Atlantis coins.”

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