The Etherum 1.x page is a good starting point for an overview of Working Groups and areas of focus.
Regular small hard forks allow upgrades to be included in more timely and manageable way that large infrequent forks, as described here
The fork will ideally follow an EIP-centric approach outlined here. This approach will allow EIPs to mature independently of forking schedule. When mature, they can be added to the next scheduled fork.
Steps for EIPs:
Previous hard fork details are summarised in this stack exchange question here
| Fork number | Block number | Date | Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 2015-07-30 | Frontier |
| 1 | 200000 | 2015-09-07 | Frontier Thawing |
| 2 | 1150000 | 2016-03-14 | Homestead |
| 3 | 1920000 | 2016-07-20 | DAO Fork |
| 4 | 2463000 | 2016-10-18 | Tangerine Whistle |
| 5 | 2675000 | 2016-11-22 | Spurious Dragon |
| 6 | 4370000 | 2017-10-16 | Byzantium |
| 7 | 7280000 | 2019-02-28 | Constantinople |
| 8 | TBD | TBD | Istanbul |
| 9 | TBD | TBD | Berlin |
| 10 | TBD | TBD | London |
| 11 | TBC | TBC | Devcon names thereafter |
Details to follow after Istanbul fork is completed
The proposed EIPs will be derived from the ‘Tentatively Accepted’ EIPs from the Istanbul Meta-EIP here.
The following 8 EIPs were ‘Tentatively Accepted’
Review of the EIPs will be ongoing, those complete the following hurdles will progress
This diagram loosely captures the proposal history for Istanbul and Berlin. Below are some themes that are among the discussed potential changes.
| EIP | Title | Status | Status note | Topic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EIP-663 | Unlimited SWAP and DUP instructions | Proposed | Tentatively raised for Berlin in decision 67.1 | EVM stack |
| EIP-1057 | ProgPoW, a Programmatic Proof-of-Work | Proposed | Pending audit results | PoW |
| EIP-1380 | Reduced gas cost for call to self | Proposed | Tentatively raised for Berlin in decision 67.1 | Gas |
| EIP-1702 | Generalized Account Versioning Scheme | Proposed | Design-1 variant was tentatively proposed for Berlin in decision 63.2 | Account versioning |
| EIP-1962 | EC arithmetic and pairings with runtime definitions | Proposed | Tentatively raised for Berlin in decision 66.5 | Elliptic curve |
| EIP-1985 | Sane limits for certain EVM parameters | Proposed | Tentatively accepted in decision 67.1 | EVM stack |
| EIP-2045 | add EIP for fractional gas costs | Proposed | Tentatively proposed for Berlin in decision 67.1 | Gas |
| EIP-2046 | Reduced gas cost for static calls made to precompiles | Proposed | Tentatively proposed for Berlin in decision 67.1 | Elliptic curve |
The next fork will be called London, in keeping with the DevCon location sequence.
The fork will consist of EIPs mature enough to go in, following the EIP-centric development cycle. Forks will preferentially be small and on-time rather than large and late, with the knowledge that regular forks allow almost-ready EIPs a concrete timeline for incorporation.