The Coin Metrics and Coin Desk Research team have published a Chart which explains the Ethereum price and protocol upgrades from June 2015 through June 2020. It is worth looking in to the chart for those who would have a keen interest in understanding the evolution of the Ethereum price and Ethereum Protocol.
The chart covers the price status through the Frontier, Homestead and Metropolis stages. The beginning of the Frontier, Ice Age, Homestead, The DAO Fork, Tangerine Whistle, Spurious Dragon, Byzantium, Constantinople and St. Petersburg, Istanbul, and Muir Glacier.
The first public software release from Ethereum is the Frontier. This release permitted users to mine Ether and also allowed them to upload contracts.
The Ethereum Ice Age was the scheme that was put in to place to ensure incentives for everyone who move to the new blockchain after the implementation of the hard fork. It was programmed in a way to increase the difficulty exponentially. Increased difficulty will increase the block time and thus the blockchain will freeze and so it was called the Ice Age.
Ethereum Homestead is the second major version release with several protocol and networking changes. Thus made it possible to further network upgrades and it consisted of EIP-2 Main Homestead hardfork; EIP-7 Hardfork EVM Update: Delegate Call; EIP-8 devp2p forward compatibility.
The DAO Fork is the Decentralized Autonomous Organization focused on operating like the Venture Capital Fund for the cryptocurrency and the blockchain. This led to the hard forking and the original blockchain was left as Ethereum Classic. This was when Ethereum and Ethereum Classic with each of them having their own cryptocurrency came in to existence.
Tangerine Whistle consisted of Protocol changes per EIP 150 1c, which is about long-term gas cost changes for IO-heavy operations to mitigate transaction spam attacks. The EIP 158 for state clearing. EIP 608 hardfork meta Tangerine Whistle.
Spurious Dragon went through protocol changes by EIP 155 for replay attack protection to prevent transactions from the main Ethereum Chain being replayed on the Classic Chain. EIP 160 for EXP cost increase making it difficult to slow down the network via computationally expensive contract operations.
EIP 161 for State Trie Clearing enabling debloat of the blockchain state to clean up the 20 million empty accounts created in the September and October 2016 Ethereum Network Attack. EIP 170 Contract code size limit for changes in the maximum code size which a contract on the blockchain can have.
Further other EIP changes happened through Byzantium, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, Istanbul and Muir Glacier.
Sydney Ifergan, the crypto expert tweeted: “A good look back to the past helps reflect on the path traveled and the more that is to come for those who are trying to get a quick idea of Ethereum Network and ETH.”
After every protocol change, the market reacted with buying and selling decisions. There were price spikes, crests and troughs. It helps to know what every protocol change promises, the scopes, benefits and disadvantages to know whether to hold or let go.