Ethereum Classic to Test Code for 'Atlantis' Upgrade This Month

Ethereum classic developers are speeding up plans to test a proposed upgrade for the blockchain network.

The move to ramp up the timeline came during a developer call on Thursday, during which ecosystem stakeholders expressed a desire to see the system-wide upgrade -- dubbed "Atlantis" -- occur sometime later this summer. But rather than committing to a mainnet activation date more than two months in advance of the original proposed timeline, it was agreed that the testnet activation of Atlantis could be brought up to two weeks from Thursday, or June 19, instead of in early August.

"The July 1st target is off. No need to further discuss that," concluded user "soc1c" in the ethereum classic Discord channel. "We have agreed on testnet and can still decide on mainnet."

The Atlantis upgrade introduces changes to the ethereum classic network that were formally introduced on the original ethereum network back in 2017. The goal is to enhance interoperability between the two blockchains such that migration of decentralized applications (dapps) from one blockchain to the other is easier.

Now, with a moderately sped-up timeline for testnet activation, some ecosystem participants hope to see Atlantis implemented on the main network as early as August.

Created in 2016, ethereum classic came about following a fork of the ethereum network in the wake of the now-infamous collapse of The DAO, a smart contract-based funding vehicle that failed following a debilitating code exploit. It arose amid disagreements over plans to hard fork the network to effectively undo the damage caused by The DAO's failure, with ETC continuing on with the original chain.

Still, as early as last week, developers were in disagreement last week over certain components of Atlantis.

Namely, concerns had been raised over the efficacy of making a fixed cap to the size of smart contract code on the blockchain a backwards-incompatible change – warranting a hard fork – as opposed to a backwards-compatible change which would not require a mandatory upgrade.

No resolution to this disagreement has been made yet. However, developers did agree during Friday's meeting that another call would be coordinated for June 13 to further discuss the contents and schedule for the upgrade.

As soc1c told CoinDesk:

"I can't tell what the future will bring. For now we agreed to fork the testnets with everything included in [Atlantis] as it is, and reserve the option to modify mainnet spec and date in a subsequent call."

Ethereum classic image via CoinDesk archives