Ethereum is bullish on January 31: Difficulty bomb is activated on Ethereum network

ETH/USD is changing hands at $108.40. The coin managed to extend the recovery on Wednesday, having gained over 2.5% on a day-over-day basis. The upside momentum is based on technical and speculative factors as ETH is moving in sync with other major altcoins. It is worth noting that Bitcoin lags behind this time with only 0.3% of growth.

Daily rewards for blocks mined in Ethereum network are reduced by 25%, while the regular issuance dropped from 20,000 to 15,000 ETH after the difficulty bomb activation. Thus, the project soft started a so-called Ice Age that will remain in place until Constantinople update scheduled on February 27.

Once the network is updated, the reward will decrease from 3ETH to 2ETH per block, while the launch of the next difficulty bomb will be postponed for another year, according to Trustnode research. 

Due to increased difficulty, miners will need more time to find a block, which will reduce issuance by 2,000 ETH a day. In Constantinople update is not activated, the difficulty will become so high that it would be impossible to mine even a single block.

"Block times are now increasing to an average of 18 seconds per block, up from about 15 seconds but still nowhere near the 30 seconds it reached before the last time the difficulty bomb was delayed back in 2017, ”Trustnode writes.

ETH/USD, daily chart