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Update EIP #649

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EIPS/eip-649.md
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This is the suggested template for new EIPs.
Note that an EIP number will be assigned by an editor. When opening a pull request to submit your EIP, please use an abbreviated title in the filename, `eip-draft_title_abbrev.md`.
## Preamble
EIP: <to be assigned>
Title: <EIP title>
Author: <list of authors' names and optionally, email addresses>
Type: <Standard Track | Informational | Meta>
Category (*only required for Standard Track): <Core | Networking | Interface | ERC>
EIP: 649 ? 669
Title: Metropolis Difficulty Bomb Delay
Authors: Afri Schoedon (Champion), Vitalik Buterin (Specification)
Type: Standard Track
Category: Core
Status: Draft
Created: <date created on, in ISO 8601 (yyyy-mm-dd) format>
Requires (*optional): <EIP number(s)>
Replaces (*optional): <EIP number(s)>
Created: 2017-06-21
## Simple Summary
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." Provide a simplified and layman-accessible explanation of the EIP.
The average block times are increasing due to the difficulty bomb (also as known as the "ice age") slowly accelerating. This EIP proposes to delay the difficulty bomb for approximately one and a half year.
## Abstract
A short (~200 word) description of the technical issue being addressed.
After `METROPOLIS_FORK_BLKNUM` the client will simply calculate the difficulty based on a fake block number suggesting the client that the difficulty bomb is adjusting around 3 million blocks later than previously specified with the Homestead fork.
## Motivation
The motivation is critical for EIPs that want to change the Ethereum protocol. It should clearly explain why the existing protocol specification is inadequate to address the problem that the EIP solves. EIP submissions without sufficient motivation may be rejected outright.
The Casper development and switch to Proof-of-Stake is delayed, the Proof-of-Work should be feasible for miners and create new blocks every 15 seconds on average for another 1.4 years.
## Specification
The technical specification should describe the syntax and semantics of any new feature. The specification should be detailed enough to allow competing, interoperable implementations for any of the current Ethereum platforms (cpp-ethereum, go-ethereum, parity, ethereumj, ethereumjs, ...).
For the purposes of `calc_difficulty`, we simply replace the use of `block.number`, as used in the exponential ice age component, with the formula:
fake_block_number = block.number - 3000000 if block.number >= METROPOLIS_FORK_BLKNUM else block.number
## Rationale
The rationale fleshes out the specification by describing what motivated the design and why particular design decisions were made. It should describe alternate designs that were considered and related work, e.g. how the feature is supported in other languages. The rationale may also provide evidence of consensus within the community, and should discuss important objections or concerns raised during discussion.
This will delay the ice age by 42 million seconds ~= 1.4 years, so we would be back at 30 second block times at the end of 2018. An alternate proposal was that we add special rules to the difficulty calculation to effectively _pause_ the difficulty between different blocks. That would lead to similar results.
This was previously discussed at All Core Devs Meeting [#09](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings/Meeting%209.md#metropolis-timing-and-roadmap-discussion), [#12](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings/Meeting%2012.md#5-metropolis-update), [#13](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings/Meeting%2013.md#3-eip-186-reduce-eth-issuance-before-proof-of-stake-hudson), and [#14](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings/Meeting%2014.md#1-eip-186-reduce-eth-issuance-before-proof-of-stake-core-devs). Consensus on the specification was achieved in All Core Devs Meeting [#19](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings/Meeting%2019.md) and specification drafted in EIP issue [#649](https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/649).
## Backwards Compatibility
All EIPs that introduce backwards incompatibilities must include a section describing these incompatibilities and their severity. The EIP must explain how the author proposes to deal with these incompatibilities. EIP submissions without a sufficient backwards compatibility treatise may be rejected outright.
This EIP is not forward compatible and introduces backwards incompatibilities in the difficulty calculation. Therefore, it should be included in a scheduled hardfork at a certain block number. It's suggested to include this EIP in the Metropolis fork.
## Test Cases
Test cases for an implementation are mandatory for EIPs that are affecting consensus changes. Other EIPs can choose to include links to test cases if applicable.
No test cases exist yet. But will be easy to set up based on the rules specified above.
## Implementation
The implementations must be completed before any EIP is given status "Final", but it need not be completed before the EIP is accepted. While there is merit to the approach of reaching consensus on the specification and rationale before writing code, the principle of "rough consensus and running code" is still useful when it comes to resolving many discussions of API details.
None existing client implementation exists yet.
## Copyright
Copyright and related rights waived via [CC0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).