Qtum's First-Ever Hard Fork Qtum 2.0 Is Now Active

Major Proof-of-Stake blockchain Qtum has gone through its first-ever hard fork today, updating the network to Qtum 2.0.Major network upgrade.

Qtum blockchain has had its first hard fork as scheduled, Qtum Official tweeted on Oct. 17.

The hard fork happened at block 466,000, upgrading the Qtum network to unlock a number of significant features such as smart contract and block spacing improvements, as previously announced by the firm.

According to Qtum blockchain explorer Qtum Insight, the number of blocks on Qtum blockchain has crossed the 466,000 mark, amounting to 466,621 at press time.

As Qtum previously announced, the purpose of the hard fork is to upgrade the Qtum blockchain, not to produce a new coin.

Specifically, Qtum 2.0 activates four Qtum Improvement Proposals that introduce a number of performance enhancements and new features.

QIP-6: Add btc ecrecover precompiled contract to the Qtum EVM;.QIP-7: Upgrade the Qtum EVM to the latest Ethereum EVM Constantinople;.

Qtum recommended that users update to version 0.18.1 as soon as possible, noting that the new features have been enabled automatically as of block 466,600.

QTUM is up nearly 6%. At publishing time, Qtum's native cryptocurrency QTUM is the 36th largest coin by market cap, currently at $178 million.

Following the hard fork, QTUM is up 5.7% over the past 24 hours at press time, according to Coin360.