Frontier hard fork
Mainnet 2015-07-30
The launch of the Ethereum mainnet.
What changed
- Users
- The Ethereum network went live with real value for the first time. People who received ether (ETH) in the presale could use the balances recorded in the genesis block from this point on. However, Frontier was an early version aimed at developers, so there was no graphical wallet, and sending funds or calling contracts had to be done with command-line tools. It was not an environment that ordinary users could use comfortably.
- Wallet & app developers
- Smart contracts could now be deployed and run on the real mainnet. Contract deployment and calls, which until then had only been tried on testnets, took place for the first time in an environment that used real ether. However, right after launch the gas limit per block was set very low, so transactions could hardly get in, and this limit was lifted in the following Frontier Thawing fork. Tools and documentation were all at an early stage, so developers had to handle much of the work themselves.
- Node operators
- Anyone could now download a client, run a node and take part in Proof of Work mining. New ether also began to be issued as mining rewards from this point. Because it was an early version, it included a safeguard (canary contract) that let the development team send a signal to halt the network if a critical bug was found, and operators had to keep up with frequent software updates.