As Ethereum nears its imminent Constantinople hard fork, investors are keenly interested on speculating as to how it may impact the short and long-term price action for the cryptocurrency.
The term “hard fork” is typically seen as being a negative event for cryptocurrencies, and this is in part due to previous forks that have badly burned investors, like the recent Bitcoin Cash hard fork that split the community and led the cryptocurrency’s price to plunge.
Despite this, prominent analysts seem to agree that Constantinople may have bullish implications for Ethereum, mainly due to its network improvements and its supply reducing upgrade that will reduce the new supply of ETH by 33%.
Ethereum Developer: Constantinople Least Eventful ETH Hard Fork
One of the greatest risks posed by hard forks is the splitting of the cryptocurrency at hand into two versions. This can greatly impact the crypto’s price action, and it can split the community while driving fearful investors out of their positions.
Mati Greenspan, the senior market analyst at eToro, discussed the contentions hard forks can cause in a recent email, saying:
“Sometimes, when there is a disagreement among the community about the upgrade, some members will choose to keep the old version of the blockchain alive and we see a split. The most famous cases of this was when Bitcoin Cash split off of Bitcoin on August 1st 2017 and when Ethereum split with Ethereum Classic back in 2016,” he explained.
It is important to note that this is not the case with the upcoming Constantinople fork – which has been delayed for an unforeseeable amount of time due to the discovery of a security vulnerability in one of the system upgrades – which will not be splitting ETH and should offer some great benefits to the network.
Ethereum core developer Lane Rettig recently spoke to Bloomberg about the upcoming fork, noting that it is one of the least eventful the network has seen in its history.
“I really can’t imagine a less contentious hard fork, to be honest… Of all the hard forks in the history of Ethereum, it’s probably the least eventful one,” Rettig said.
Analysts Believe Constantinople is Bullish for ETH
In addition to offering some simple improvements to the network, analysts do believe that ETH investors will see benefits incurred from the hard fork, specifically due to the block rewards reduction that will reduce the supply of new Ether output, possibly offering the crypto more stable growth in the long-run.
Greenspan bullishly concluded that by Thursday evening, the markets will have a new Ethereum that is “faster, cheaper, and has 33% less inflation.”
Michael Moro, the chief executive officer of Genesis Global Trading, also spoke optimistically about the upcoming fork, specifically citing how the reduction of supply will reduce selling pressure.
“Being that the inflation rate will drop by a third, it could potentially reduce selling pressure that could come from the miners’ reward,” he explained.
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