The Ethereum Foundation has released new information about the upcoming upgrade to Proof-of-Stake. As it is known, “The Merge” will be held in September. An official timeline for this has been provided. Here are the details…
Latest updates released for Ethereum Merge
The Ethereum Foundation has released updates on the way to Proof-of-Stake with the highly anticipated “Merge”. The descriptions show that the preparations have gone smoothly so far. According to an announcement on the Ethereum Foundation’s blog, the transition will require a two-stage update. The first upgrade, named Bellatrix, is scheduled for 144896 epochs on Beacon Chain Expected Sept. cryptocoin.comAs we have reported, this upgrade will be executed on the Beacon Chain.
After that, a second upgrade called Paris will be triggered when a certain Total Difficulty threshold is exceeded between September 10 and 20. This second upgrade will be the one that joins the two chains. Node operators must update both the consensus layer and execution layer clients to successfully migrate to the new ecosystem.
Merge refers to a planned upgrade where the network’s Proof-of-Work chain will “merge” with the currently working Proof-of-Stake Beacon Chain. After the merge is complete, the Beacon Chain (also known as the “consensus layer”) will validate the blocks on the network. Among other benefits, the upgrade is expected to reduce Ethereum’s energy use by over 99 percent.
Details of the roadmap
Paris, which is part of the execution layer of the transition according to the published calendar, will be triggered by the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) expected from September 10-20, 2022. The exact date the TTD is reached will depend on the hash rate of the PoW network. When the execution layer reaches or exceeds the TTD, the next block will be generated by a Beacon Chain validator. The Merge transition is considered complete when the Beacon Chain terminates this block. Terminal total difficulty (TTD) is the technical term for the computational power required to complete the last block on Ethereum before moving to ETH 2.0.
Merge has been studied for years. But in 2022, enthusiasm reached a fever pitch as the often-delayed event came a little closer to reality. The merge on the Goerli testnet, which is said to be the final “rehearsal” for Merge, was successfully completed earlier this month. This sent a signal to the crypto community that the legendary upgrade is imminent. In contrast, the ETH price rallied throughout August before cooling off last week. JP Morgan even predicted that the crypto market “found some ground” thanks to the enthusiasm surrounding the upgrade.
Developers paved the way for the testing phase
Merge aims to solve network scalability issues by laying the groundwork for future upgrades, including sharding. The blog post also offers a warning to developers to pre-check and protect their own work. The Ethereum Foundation continues to remind readers that once the transition to PoS is complete, mining will no longer work or rewards will be earned.
Today’s announcement follows a July 29 post in which the project developers are preparing for the final testing phase. ETH co-founder Vitalik Buterin also recently provided an update that sets September 15 as the Merge date.
