Following one of
@IvanOnTech recent videos, where he mentioned that RH hired a Fiverr developer to fork PulseChain, I decided to look into it myself. I went on Fiverr, found a developer with an excellent track record, and asked a few simple questions, such as the cost of forking Ethereum (using PulseChain as an example) and forking Uniswap (referring to PulseX).
I won’t share the full back-and-forth conversation—it’s quite technical—but I will give you the actual price and time frame. It’s shocking!
Basically, he told me that a full fork of Ethereum would cost between $100K and $120K and could be done in a few months with just a small team of developers.
Forking Uniswap? $2,500
So there you have it. We were told by RH that PulseChain took two years to build, raising roughly $700Million approx, and PulseX brought in another ~$600Million approx.
Do the math.
If that doesn’t make you stop and question things, something is off.
Also, this exposes the myth that RH is a genius innovator for creating these projects. In reality, the barrier to entry is much lower than people think, if you have capital, you can hire developers to fork existing protocols and rebrand them.
That’s not innovation. That's copying, rebranding and marketing. That's all it takes.
Me:
Hi, I’m looking for an experienced developer who can fork the Ethereum blockchain. I would like to create a version called “Fastchain” that offers faster and cheaper transactions. Could you give me an estimate of the cost and the timeframe required to complete such a project? It has to be an EVM chain, just like Ethereum. PulseChain is an example of what I mean, since it is a fork of Ethereum. I want something similar in structure, but with a different name, branding, and design.
D:
17 Apr, 9:39
PulseChain is not just a copy of the code, it is a "hard fork" that altered Ethereum's fundamental rules to create a seprarate ecosystem. To replicate this , we must modify the following core components:
Consensus Mechanism: pulsechain moved from Pow(Proof of Work) to a variant of Pos(Proof of Stake). We will need to rewrite the consensus layer entirely.
State Copy: pulsechain famously copied the entire Ethereum state(balances, smart contracts, NFTs) onto its new chain. This requires a complex migration script to snapshot the Ethereum mainnet.
Parameter Tuning: We will need to change variables in the codebase, such as: Block Time, ChainID and Gas economics.
You have to have dozens of nodes which has minimum specs of 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD storage and 4~8 vCPUs.
And you need an Archive Node to access historical data. Processing and validating the entire Ethereum state requires significant engineering resources and time.
A blockchain is just a database without a network. pulsechain has over 15000 validators. To launch a secure chain, you need a mechanism to distribute your token and convince independent parties to run validator software.
I think it will take about $100k~120k dollars for more than 2 months
Me:
Can one person do it or you need a team of devs to complete this task?
D
Of course, I can do it alone. But in that case it will take more time. So I will work with my 2~3 teammates.
Me:
What about forking a Uniswap, like PulseX, which is a forked DEX on PulseChain? Could you please review the code and share your thoughts, including pricing and the estimated time required to complete it?
D
20 Apr, 21:10
How about $2.5k?
20 Apr, 21:11
Are you saying that a hard fork of Uniswap will cost $2,5K?
D
yeah