Jameson further elaborated on the reason for choosing a block number that will arrive on October:
“For anyone listening in who doesn’t know how this works, we pick a block number that we estimate to be around the 2nd of October. […] However, that might be one or two days behind or forward from that date based on how fast blocks are produced between now and then.”
Notably, On August 28, Parity, a blockchain framework startup, having its core deployed on the Ethereum network, had postponed the intended hardfork to September 6.
At that time, Parity core programmer Wei Tang stated that the firm requires a minimum of two more weeks before programmers could move forward in choosing a bock number for the Istanbul hardfork.
Tang said
“We need time till 6th September to finish the implementation. Not only because we accepted EIPs late but right now we just happened to be a large code base refactoring and we probably want to merge them first before merging Istanbul EIP.”
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder, stated that the Ethereum blockchain has been utilized to the maximum possible extent, discouraging further adoption by potential Ethereum app developers.
Buterin said
“Scalability is a big bottleneck because the Ethereum blockchain is almost full. If you’re a bigger organization, the calculus is that if we join, it will not only be more full but we will be competing with everyone for transaction space. It’s already expensive and it will be even five times more expensive because of us. There is pressure to keeping people from joining.”