We’re Ready for the Berlin Fork

Another Ethereum hard fork is upon us. You know what that means — time to update your nodes! Ethereum’s program of continuous innovation makes critical improvements to the network. These improvements result in new protocol upgrades, like the upcoming Berlin Fork. This upgrade brings various optimizations for contracts including gas efficiencies, updates to how code is read by the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and other changes to protect against denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks. The hardfork includes at least five Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP).

Ethereum Mainnet is currently targeting the Berlin fork for April 14 at block height 12,244,000. Before mainnet the fork will be applied to the Ropsten, Goerli, and Rinkeby testnets; if any issues are discovered the target date for the Mainnet fork may change.

Running Your Own Node? Get Fork-Ready.

Ethereum is a peer-to-peer network. That means that anyone who wants to run Ethereum infrastructure will need to update their software to an Ethereum client version that is “fork-ready.” If you miss the fork and fail to upgrade your software in time, you’ll no longer have an accurate view into the source of blockchain data. You’ll need to resynchronize your node with the blockchain, a process that could take hours or days.

If you’re running your own node, you can get fork-ready by taking the following steps:

1. Regularly check client pages for the software update announcement:

• Geth
• Open-Ethereum
• Besu
• Nethermind;

2. Review the fork updates to determine if any changes are needed in your applications, or if any users will be impacted;

3. Update your node prior to the fork block.

Using Infura? No Changes Required.

If you’re an Infura user, don’t worry — we’re ready. There’s no action needed from you. Infura has been running reliable Ethereum infrastructure for over four years and we’re adept at handling large-scale updates during network hard forks. We’ll take care of the upgrade so you can continue building great software.

As always, we’re here to help. If you have any questions about the upgrade, please reach out to the team via our Community page or drop us an email at support@infura.io.