Berlin hard fork is live on Ethereum. The Berlin Hard Fork is a network upgrade that incorporates four Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) that tinker with gas prices and allow new transaction types. An upgrade is a stepping stone to the much bigger London hard fork, which will activate EIP 1559, a momentous change to Ethereum’s fee structure.
Ethereum developer Tim Beiko celebrated this upgrade via tweet, “Berlin is here”. Ethereum Berlin hard fork went live at block 12,244,000 on 15 April 2021 Wednesday. Four EIP will be injected with the Berlin upgrade: 2565,2929,2718,2930.
The EIPs Are:
EIP 2565 “ModeExp Gas Prices.”
EIP is a specific algorithm to redefine the gas price of a given transaction type that uses Modular Exponentiation. This Explains the EIP, “a fundamental arithmetic operation of many cryptographic functions,” including a signature, VDF (verifiable delay functions), and more. ModExp Modular Exponentiation compiler is too expensive in Ethereum. It promotes the use of a wider range of cryptographic operations in smart contracts.
EIP 2718 “Typed Transaction Envelope”
This EIP 2718 makes all transaction types “backward compatible” using the so-called “envelope transaction”. It allows the addition of new transaction logic into Ethereum.
EIP 2929 “Increasing Gas costs for state Access opcodes”
EIP 2929 does not lower the price for certain operations but increases them. It is about “opcodes” that access memory. A pain point for the Dos (Denial of services) attacks on Ethereum in the past.
EIP 2930 “Optional Access Lists”
EIP 2930, a new transaction type made possible by EIP-2718’s envelope transactions. It allows its users to create templates for future complex transactions to lower gas costs.
The Berlin hard fork named Germany’s capital that played host to the first Ethereum DevCon was initially scheduled for June or July 2020. Still, pushed it back due to the Geth client’s centralization concerns on which most Ethereum nodes operate.
This Hardfork which means old Ethereum clients will not be compatible will upgraded ones is one of many on the road to Eth 2.0, Ethereum’s herculean leap from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.
EIP 1559 is not a part of the Berlin upgrade it is precisely this upgrade that is most awaited. The community expects it to provide temporary relief from what is currently causing the most pain in Ethereum’s extremely high fees.
London follows Berlin in July, which expects to incorporate EIP-1559, a proposal to reduce ether supply. Instead, a user sending a gas fee to a minor for the transaction to be added to the blockchain. The network would set the fee itself and then burn it. There are concerns that this will diminish the minor profit but have the potential to make ether more valuable due to limiting supply.
