Arrow Glacier Upgrade Announcement
The Arrow Glacier Upgrade: A Crucial Step Towards Ethereum's Transition to Proof of Stake
As the Ethereum network continues to evolve, a scheduled upgrade is set to take place at block number 13,773,000, predicted to occur on Wednesday, December 8, 2021. This upgrade, known as Arrow Glacier, marks a significant step towards Ethereum's transition to Proof of Stake (PoS), a shift that promises to increase the network's scalability, security, and efficiency.
What is Arrow Glacier?
Arrow Glacier is a network upgrade that changes the parameters of the Ice Age/Difficulty Bomb, pushing it back several months. This has been done in previous upgrades, such as Muir Glacier, Byzantium, Constantinople, and London. The difficulty bomb only affects Proof of Work (PoW) networks, and hence only exists on the Ethereum mainnet and the Ropsten test network. With the recent progress towards Ethereum's transition to PoS, it was decided to only delay the bomb on mainnet for now and to try and run the PoS transition on Ropsten before the bomb goes off on that network.
Client Versions
In order to be compatible with the Arrow Glacier upgrade, node operators will need to update the client version that they run to one of the ones listed below:
- go-ethereum (geth) 1.10.12
- Nethermind 1.11.7
- Erigon 2021.11.01-alpha
- Besu 21.10.0
- EthereumJS VM 5.6.0
Note: OpenEthereum, which was announced as deprecated earlier this year, has released support for Arrow Glacier under version number 3.3.0-rc.14, which can be downloaded here. However, we still recommend following the prior deprecation warnings and selecting an alternative client software.
Upgrade Specification and EIPs
The full specification for the upgrade can be found in the execution-specs repository here. A single EIP is included in the upgrade: EIP-4345: Difficulty Bomb Delay to June 2022.
What You Need to Do
If you use an exchange, a web wallet service, a mobile wallet service, or a hardware wallet, you do not need to do anything unless you are informed to take additional steps by your exchange or wallet service.
As a node operator or miner, you need to download the latest version of your Ethereum client, as listed in the table above.
What Happens if You Don't Participate in the Upgrade?
If you are using an Ethereum client that is not updated to the latest version (listed above), your client will sync to the pre-fork blockchain once the upgrade occurs. You will be stuck on an incompatible chain following the old rules and you will be unable to send Ether or operate on the post-upgrade Ethereum network.
Network Upgrades in Ethereum-Land
A network upgrade is a change to the underlying Ethereum protocol, creating new rules to improve the system. The decentralized nature of blockchain systems makes a network upgrade more difficult. Network upgrades in a blockchain require cooperation and communication with the community, as well as with the developers of the various Ethereum clients in order for the transition to go smoothly.
What Happens During a Network Upgrade?
After the community comes to an agreement concerning which changes should be included in the upgrade, changes to the protocol are written into the various Ethereum clients, such as geth, Erigon, Besu, and Nethermind. The protocol changes are activated at a specific block number. Any nodes that have not been upgraded to the new ruleset will be abandoned on the old chain where the previous rules continue to exist.
Why "Arrow Glacier"?
While we've recently been using Devcon names for network upgrades, when we previously had an upgrade that only pushed back the bomb, we decided to switch nomenclature. To highlight the nature of the upgrade (pushing back the "Ice Age"), we went with a glacier name, hence Muir Glacier. This upgrade follows a similar pattern. Because the transition to Proof of Stake is on the horizon, a retreating glacier was chosen, hence Arrow Glacier.
Conclusion
The Arrow Glacier upgrade marks a significant step towards Ethereum's transition to Proof of Stake, a shift that promises to increase the network's scalability, security, and efficiency. As a node operator or miner, it is essential to update your client version to ensure compatibility with the upgrade. The decentralized nature of blockchain systems makes network upgrades more difficult, but with cooperation and communication, the transition can go smoothly.
Source: https://blog.ethereum.org/en/2021/11/10/arrow-glacier-announcement
