Ethereum Hard Fork UpdateIn the 'Bitcoin World' Hard-Fork is kind of a dirty word.
In Ethereum however, it is the way the Software is upgraded and the system is perfected.
As a result, Ethereum's pace of development is much more rapid than Bitcoin's.
There are benefits to both approaches. They are just different ways of doing things.
In its Roadmap Ethereum had, from the beginning, several Hard Forks planned, well in advance.
The next planned Hard Fork is called 'Metropolis'. It was planned from the very beginning of the network and software's creation.
The Ethereum Network Moves ForwardA few unexpected Hard Forks have come up, along the way.
Some were very contentious. Others were not. They were all responses to issues at the time.
Recently the Ethereum network went under an ongoing and sustained attack.
This was a result of flaws in the way Gas was implemented. Gas is like 'fees' in Bitcoin.
The attacker exploited this flaw to attack the network for a sustained period of time.
The Ethereum community responded with a Hard-Fork that was implemented yesterday.
We think this is good for Ethereum. It is how networks get stronger over time.
They are attacked and they build resistance. It's just how organic bodies, like your own, get strong over time too.
Anyway, the Hard Fork went smoothly yesterday.
Everything is back on track with the Ethereum network.
Impact on vDice and Other DappsMany Dapps in Ethereum were affected by the spam attack.
Gas limits on transactions were artificially set low, at 2m Gas.
This was a measure to combat the spam attack on the network.
To get a Dapp onto the Ethereum network, you need to spend Gas.
A lot of Dapps, including vDice's new updated code-base, take 2m+ Gas to load onto the network.
So, this did delay us a bit, and our roadmap. It also delayed a lot of other Dapps.
Moving ForwardNow the Hard-Fork is over, we should see the Gas limit slowly rise.
That means soon we will be able to deploy our new codebase.
The new codebase works with other infrastructure to make betting much faster and more efficient.
It represents the beginning of the end for Phase 1 of our development roadmap.
vDice is Classic SatoshiDICE implemented as an Ethereum Smart Contract.
It's going to do some amazing things.
And we look forward to everyone trying out the upgraded code we've been working hard on.
Of course, we also look forward to trying out all the other new Dapps that will be loaded onto the network now.
Not just in gambling, but in all parts of the Ethereum ecosystem.
Onward and upward. It is brights days for Ethereum.
And hats off to the core developers of the Ethereum software implementations.
They have done a fine job!