According to the latest reports, Binance cryptocurrency exchange plans to suspend Ether deposits and withdrawals. This move will be executed to support the recently announced Ethereum network Muir Glacier upgrade. According to a blog post published on December 30, Binance confirmed that withdrawals and deposits will be suspended on the platform before the Ethereum network block height of 9,200,000 selected to execute the upgrade.
ETH Trading To Run Normally
While deposits and withdrawals will be closed till Binance feels the upgraded network is stable enough, ETH trading will not be affected during the entire upgrading process. Binance stated that it does not plan to make a separate announcement about the resumption of withdrawals and deposits. Thus, it advises investors to make deposits in full before the upgrade starts:
“Please leave sufficient time for deposits to be processed in full prior to the above ETH network block height. We will handle all technical requirements involved for all users holding ETH in their Binance accounts.”
Muir Glacier Upgrade Comes Weeks After Instanbul Hard Fork
The Muir Glacier upgrade, as described by Ethereum developer James Hancock in a November 22 proposal, is expected to go live on the mainnet on Jan. 1, 2021 at block 9,200,000. Nonetheless, the exact date may change due to variable block times, time zones, and real-time block statistics which are available on Ethernodes.org.
Based on a blog post by the Ethereum Cat Herders, the Muir Glacier features just one improvement proposal, EIP 2384. Herders is a community dedicated to the Ethereum Network’s development. This proposal is well-designed to delay the ‘difficulty bomb’ that is also known as Ethereum’s Ice Age. The delay will come for an additional 4,000,000 blocks or around 611 days.
Ethereum’s difficulty bomb is described as a mechanism that is expected to make the generation of new blocks more complicated momentarily. This complication would ultimately lead the network to a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm.
According to the Ethereum Cat Herders, Muir Glacier upgrade is vital after the December 7 Instanbul upgrade. It comes in handy due to challenges in predicting the timing of the difficulty bomb. The post further reads:
“The timing of when the difficulty bomb begins to kick-in is difficult to estimate. While planning Istanbul, it was first estimated that the bomb would not be noticeable until mid-2020. This implied that it could safely be delayed in the follow-up upgrade to Istanbul. However, those estimates were wrong.”
Activation
Official reports, as announced by the Ethereum Cat Herders, reveal that the Muir Glacier upgrade will only be activated on the Ropsten testnet network. The miners and node operators who missed the Istanbul upgrade and are not participating in the current Ethereum chain are encouraged to upgrade their clients to Muir Glacier immediately.
The Ethereum Foundation made an official announcement stating that nodes should be upgraded before December 30, 2019. Binance announced a similar action on December 16 to support a 2.0.2 network upgrade of Algorand.
