Hardest Fork (3 of 8)

Saving the ether in the DAO did not resolve the issues posed by its attack. There was no guarantee that the ether was recoverable, because further attacks were possible. The Ethereum community faced an early challenge -- how to preserve the integrity of its blockchain and burgeoning project. One approach was to do nothing -- "code is law," and the attacker found conditions of the contract that were entirely permitted by the code. But others argued that the scale of the DAO made this approach untenable, and a so-called "hard fork" was needed. A hard fork forces a restructuring of the clients (see "Clients," Series 2), to be installed by all those participating in validating transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. This restructuring would recover the funds from the DAO attack, and return them to the original depositors. The community held a vote, and it was determined that a hard fork would be carried out at block 1,920,000.

This original is the most symbolic of Ethstory so far. The sinusoidal pattern in this original is built from block hashes leading into the hard fork, zooming in on the PDF one can read off these hashes. Behind these hashes is a verdant specter of distinct intentions -- a percentage of the Ethereum community favored the philosophical foundation of immutability. They did not accept the hard fork. The block hashes are the same, but they have a distinct future. At block 1,920,000, Ethereum forked, but those individuals did not follow. They branched off, maintaining the original formulation and now known as "Ethereum Classic" (ETC). The first block hashes of ETC are seen branching from Ethereum. The blue tint on the block hashes in Ethereum is generated from data. On-chain statistics (transactions, difficulty, etc.) showed some instability prior to the fork. The blue shading represents this deviation, like an on-chain anticipation of the major event.

• 8 editions
• Square, high-quality JPG (linked in unlockable content)
• Scalable vector-quality PDF (linked in unlockable content)

Ethstory, Original 4 in Series 2: "0xBB9bc (Branching)"

It is in Ethereum's nature to expand and diversify, to branch and bring into existence new varieties, new experiences. This second series "0xBB9bc (Branching)" is brighter than the first, signaling a kind of "turning on the light," actualizing and perceiving these rapidly branching projects. All 4 originals were generated using thousands of pieces of data drawn from primary sources, including Ethereum documentation and on-chain activity.