Ethereum developer Peter Siladiyi confirmed that Istanbul hardfork will be launched on or about December 4.
? Geth v1.9.7 (Quad Kicker) out, enabling the Istanbul hardfork for #Ethereum mainnet (block 9069000, targeted for the 4th of December) ?
Among others we’ve shipped eth/64, a faster EVM, #golang 1.13.4 on all PPAs and almost done with DNS discovery! ?//t.co/vlYHrSBWLp
— Péter Szilágyi (@peter_szilagyi) 7 ноября 2019 г.
However, the protocol update will be activated on block # 9 069 000, and not on # 9 056 000, as previously reported. Siladiyi stressed that service versions of the popular Geth client (v1.9.7) have already been released to implement the hardfork for the second most capitalized cryptocurrency network.
Among other things, the new version of Geth contains several updates. For example, the software has a mechanism for ordering forks to avoid the emergence of new chains. The memory algorithm of the Ethereum virtual machine has also been optimized, which should increase its performance.
According to AMB Crypto, the hardfork has already been successfully activated on October 30 in the Görli test network. Activation in the Rinkeby test net is scheduled for November 13th.