An Ethereum hard fork too you might be wondering. This is coming shortly after Bitcoin did its Segwit2x Hard Fork. The thing is there has been several bitcoin forks before Segwit2x. The BitcoinXT, Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin Unlimited. Ethereum has also had some forks like Ethereum Classic forks among others.

What is a FORK

According to wikipedia

"A fork is a situation in which a blockchain splits into two separate chains temporarily or permanently. Forks are a natural occurrence during mining, where two chains following the same consensus rules temporarily have the same accumulated proof-of-work and are both considered valid. They can also occur as a consequence of the use of two distinct sets of rules trying to govern the same blockchain."

To shorten this description, I will give an illustration. Imagine a company that makes fruit drinks, also Imagine that this company wrote the formular down and made it publicly accessible (very unlikely, but we are talking hypothetically) for every one to see. Now lets say a group of people come together and identify some issues with the fruit juice and decide they can make improvements to how the juice is made that will make it better. Let's say they can improve how it tastes, or the shelf life or something. So instead of making the changes to how the fruit juice is originally being made, they decide to make a another brand entirely based on the original formular but this new brand is different because it corrects all/most of the things they found wrong with the original brand.

We can liken this analogy to two famous cola flavoured drinks. I'm not mentioning names, so if you know, you know.

So applying the illustration to the scenario we are in. The original fruit drink is Ethereum while the new one made based on its formular are its forks. A fork can happen for several reasons. They can occur due to a needed upgrade of the system to prevent vulnerabilities(Checkout the DAO Fork) or improve performance and can also occur due to disagreement within the community behind the project.

EtherZero Ethereum's Latest Hard Fork

Etherzero is the name of the fork that is going to happen today once Ethereum reaches a block height of 4936270. In English, once the number of blocks are up to 4936270 (read about blocks here https://coineconomix.com/2017/12/16/introduction-to-cryptocurrencies-bitcoin-and-altcoins/). Their specifications are as follows

Fork height: 4936270 block
Time: Jan 19th 2018 GMT 19:00-21:00 (Time when the fork will take place)
Allocation: Total supply is about 116 million ETZ
Each ETH distributes 1 ETZ (1 to 1 distribution)
Reserve 20 million ETZ for subsequent development
Newly increased: about 6 million ETZ per year (about 5% inflation and declining year by year)

Etherzero is also feature packed. Some of its features include

0 transaction fees
Instant payments
Highly scalable which makes it easier to build mainstream dApps

The team also made their roadmap for the next 12 months clear. The roadmap looks like this

January 2018, the project forks from the Ethernet network.
February 2018, EtherZero will complete issuing their online wallet.
March 2018, the mobile wallet and the DApp application store will be released.
Q1/Q2 2018, the Masternode system will be implemented on Testnet.
Q4 2018, the Masternode system will go live.

So how does this fork Affect You

After the fork, a new coin will come into existence called ETZ. Nothing will happen to your coins after the fork, they will still be in existence and maintain their value. However, the new ETZ coins will be given to existing Ethereum investors depending on if your coins exists on supported wallets and exchanges. Here is a list of supported wallets MyEtherWallet imToken MetaMask (Personal Favourite) Jaxx Ledger Wallet Blockchain Wallet Trezor Hardware Wallet (Read more on that here) Atoken Bitpie KCash eidoo octoin CoinOmi CoinWall If your Ethereum wallet isn't in any of the above listed wallet, its best you transfer them right away to take advantage of the free ETZ coins that will be given. You will get ETZ in a 1:1 ratio with Ethereum, which means if you have 1Ethereum you will get 1ETZ as long as your coin exists in supported wallets.

So does that mean I have double my money

Hmmmmm.. Yes and No. You do get free ETZ after the fork, but you do not have more money in terms of FIAT value. After the fork, ETZ will not be worth anything because it won't have any value yet. But as time goes on it will get traded and the value will increase, that is when you get value for it in FIAT currency.

What happens after the fork

It is advisable you do not move your coins for at least 24hours after the fork for security reasons. You should leave them in your wallet for at least 24hours and let the new born baby and mother enjoy some peace.