Ethereum Altair Upgrade Launched. What Changed?

Ethereum Altair upgrade successfully launched on October 27, 2021, on Ethereum 2.0 mainnet. Will this impact an ETH holder? Is this the beginning of the most anticipated Ethereum 2.0? ChangeHero team is here to explain.

In Brief

• The Ethereum Altair upgrade was launched on Oct 27, 2021, at 10:56:23 UTC.
• It is the first planned update to the Ethereum Beacon Chain (Ethereum 2.0) and introduced some changes to consensus, rewards and punishment;
• The upgrade will not require any action from the ETH holders;
• Despite the successful launch, there was no big change in the price of ETH.

Ethereum Altair Upgrade

While Ethereum Foundation is busy sending updates to the Proof-of-Work chain, there were none to the Proof-of-Stake chain. This just changed with the recent hard fork.

On October 27, 2021, the Ethereum Altair upgrade was successfully activated in epoch 74240 at 10:56:23 UTC. This is the first major update to the Ethereum Beacon Chain or Ethereum 2.0.

ETH 2.0 developer Alex Stokes took to Twitter to share the news that the Altair upgrade was activated successfully.

What Changed?

It has been over a year since the launch of the Beacon Chain and staking. The Altair upgrade brings some changes to the rules of the Beacon Chain.

• Light clients (clients that don’t have to sync full blockchain) will be able to participate in core consensus;
• Changes in rewards calculation;
• To further secure the network, there will be stricter penalties for the stakers who don’t participate or validate properly.

These changes will only affect validators and node operators. All the participants must update to the latest version of the software to stay on the live version of Ethereum 2.0.

As of writing, most of the clients upgraded, and 17.6% are still on the old chain and might suffer the consequences.

Are you holding ETH and worried about what to do?

You don’t have to do anything.

The new rules will not have any impact on the end-user. HODLers can continue to use and swap ETH.

There were no big changes in terms of staking as well. The Ethereum Altair upgrade did bring some changes in the calculations of rewards and punishments, but staking did not change fundamentally.

Wondering if you could withdraw your stake?

You have to wait until the launch of Ethereum 2.0 to withdraw the staked ETH.

While the Altair upgrade launch can be seen as bullish, ETH didn’t react much. In fact, the price fell below $4,000 on Thursday. As of writing, it gained and traded above $4,000.

Ethereum 2.0

Everybody is eagerly waiting for Ethereum 2.0 and what it can do to the network. There are no major upgrades to the Ethereum Beacon Chain till “The Merge”, which will connect Ethereum 1.0 with Ethereum 2.0. Though there is no information on when Ethereum 2.0 will finally launch, the Altair upgrade is a step towards it.