The Spiral network upgrade has been successfully activated on the Ethereum Classic mainnet at block 19,250,000, marking another milestone in the network's continued development.
What is Spiral?
Spiral is a hard fork upgrade that brings Ethereum Classic to Shanghai EVM equivalence. This upgrade ensures that smart contracts and developer tools designed for Ethereum can work seamlessly on ETC.
Key Changes
EVM Improvements
Spiral includes several Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs):
- EIP-3855: PUSH0 instruction - A new opcode that pushes zero onto the stack, saving gas
- EIP-3860: Limit and meter initcode - Limits the maximum size of initcode and meters its cost
- EIP-6049: Deprecate SELFDESTRUCT - Warns developers about future changes to SELFDESTRUCT
Benefits for Developers
The upgrade ensures that smart contracts deployed on Ethereum can be deployed on ETC without modification, making it easier for developers to build on both networks.
Node Operator Requirements
Node operators must update to compatible client versions:
- Core-Geth: v1.12.17 or later
- Hyperledger Besu: Compatible versions available
ETC's Upgrade Philosophy
Ethereum Classic carefully evaluates each potential upgrade, adopting EVM improvements while maintaining its core principles of immutability and proof-of-work consensus.
For technical details, visit the ECIP repository.