Alias: Hard Fork
The fork time for v3 is pretty much set in stone on Friday, 17. May 2019 20:00:00 GMT. In order to be prepared with the appropriate production release, that will support the fork, you will be able to download the right binaries from the official GitHub on 25th April 2019.
What is a hardfork?
The cryptocurrency mainnet operates according to certain rules. To improve network performance or correct errors, changes are periodically introduced into it. A hard fork represents changes that are not compatible with previous versions of software supporting the cryptocurrency network. In order to continue to mine the cryptocurrency, miners need to update the software.
In some cases, as a result of a hard fork, a completely new cryptocurrency may appear, as happened with Bitcoin Cash and EthereumPoW.