The launch of the Constantinople update is postponed

The launch of Constantinople, the next system update for the Ethereum network, had to be postponed. The Constantinople hard fork on the Ropsten test network was delayed by five days.

According to the report, Peter Szilagyi, the leader of the development team, confirmed that the delay was made to offer users the opportunity to update and have more time to resolve the issues of a vulnerability discovered in one of Constantinople's network improvement (EIP) applications. 

After two months of testing the new protocol, the delayed launch will allow users of the Ropstein network to test other Ethereum-based projects such as Raiden, an off-chain scaling solution, and will allow time to prepare for a possible network split that could occur as a result of a hard fork.

The Constantinople upgrade requires a hard fork and will change the rewards for block issuance, code execution and data storage, etc. Because of this, the active node on the testnet will Ropsten needs to implement the changes simultaneously or the network could split in two.

Part of the problem is that Lefteria Karapetsas, the developer of the Raiden network, believes that the possibility of even a temporary split among  Ropsten precludes the possibility of testing his program. Despite the fact that it is almost ready for release on the main network, he called on Ethereum developers to postpone the upgrade date.

Thus, to avoid problems and complications, Alexey Akhunov decided that a good alternative would be to launch a temporary test network to solve problems, while the main implementation on the Ropsten network will take place later.

This is not the first delay in the activation of Constantinople, the second part of the Metropolis hard fork, which should lead to increased network efficiency. In 2018, many blockchain projects and dApps moved away from the Ethereum network due to problems with scalability and transaction speed. Therefore, Constantinople is a potential lifeline for the Ethereum project on which the team is betting.

The release of Constantinople on the Ropsten network is currently scheduled for October 14, at block number 4230000. Any further delay, according to the developers, will cause even more problems. In addition, starting October 30, the development team plans to be busy at the annual Devcon 4 Ethereum conference, so the launch will probably not be delayed any further.