The London hard fork – which has been gathering significant anticipation from the sector – has reportedly made a block height date available for three testnets, a major development in preparation for an official mainnet release. 

Specifically, Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko reportedly shared via a post on the Ethereum Foundation’s website that three testnets – Ropsten, Goerli and Rinkeby – have finalized the setting of their block heights where London will go live, with Ropsten expected to be the first at block 10,499,401, or sometime on June 24, Goerli to follow in on the footstep 6 days later, and Rinkeby on July 7th. 

“As of now, only the testnets (Ropsten, Goerli, Rinkeby) have been scheduled for London. Once the upgrade has successfully been activated on these networks, a block will be set for the Ethereum mainnet and be communicated on this blog and in other venues,”

The London hard fork upgrade will reportedly come with five Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) upgrades, but the one to capture all the attention will be EIP-1559 – designed to offer major changes to the currently employed fee structure of Ethereum, substantial decline in gas costs for users. 

The upgrade is reportedly being viewed as one among different bullish catalysts imminent for Ethereum. 

Eth2 will reportedly establish a new mechanism with a proof-of-stake consensus that has more scalability for the network, ultimately bringing down the energy level involved for operation of  validation blocks.

“The decentralized nature of blockchain systems makes a network upgrade more difficult. Network upgrades in a blockchain require cooperation and communication with the community, as well as with the developers of the various Ethereum clients in order for the transition to go smoothly.”