Bitbox to support Ethereum's next Constantinople fork

Bitbox, the cryptocurrency exchange of the famous messaging platform, has announced support for the upcoming Ethereum fixed fork in Constantinople.

The fork is set to occur at the height of the decided 7.080.000 block that should be reached between 10 and 16 January. Bitbox will handle all the technical problems associated with the rigid fork.

We're on the right path! Constantinople will most likely be activated on Wednesday 16 January, probably around 7:00 UTC. The current average blocking time is 14.48 seconds. 104407 blocks to go (6975593/7080000).

– Afri 🌩️ Jan 16 (@ 5chdn) 29 December 2018

Constantinople is one of the very hard forks of Ethereum. This important update of the network was finalized by the developers of Ethereum during a biweekly meeting, held on December 7, 2018. This fork will implement five different EIPs (Ethereum Improvement Proposals) that will permanently modify the blockchain with a series of new incompatible backward updates.

This will force all Ethereum nodes to upgrade to new software or execute a completely separate blockchain based on the previous version – a similar plan that led to the creation of Ethereum Classic after DAO hack.

Bearing in mind the possibility of a division into the chain, Bitbox has ensured that its users will be suitable for any airdrops during the hard fork period.

However, this upcoming fork will not change any service provided to end users, as it is primarily a "maintenance and optimization upgrade", according to the developers of Ethereum. The fork will change the economic policy and commission structure of the blockchain, opening a simpler way to its goal of being a highly scalable platform.

Impact on ETH trade

The approach to the hard rope has had a huge impact on the volume of currency trading in the last two weeks. Ethereum has gained about 80% of its value from the beginning of December and the trend is rising – currently, ETH is trading at $ 153.5, as per Coinmarketcap.com. He even knocked down Ripple to regain his position of being the second largest coin with a market value of nearly $ 16 billion.

Other major exchanges that advertise ETH will also support the fork as Binance, one of the largest cryptographic exchanges recently announced the same.