Developers have decided on a possible date for the mainnet Merge, which means that Ethereum’s switch to Proof-of-Stake is getting closer.
The Ethereum Merge, which will see the blockchain switch to Proof-of-Stake, may occur earlier than anticipated after core developers published a preliminary Merge date of September 15.
In a developer call on August 11, core developers including Tim Beiko and Terence Tsao, co-founder of Prysmatic Labs, decided that the Ethereum mainnet Merge date would be when Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD) reaches 58750000000000000000000.
This was verified in the “Tentative mainnet TTD” Github post that Beiko committed on August 11.
The success of the multiple testnet merges may be a good indication that the Ethereum mainnet will smoothly move to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus next month, even though the exact date and TTD may still change.
The new official timeline is at least three days earlier than the date of September 19 predicted by Tim Beiko, an Ethereum core developer.
The Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD), a large number that indicates when Proof-of-Work (PoW) will expire and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) will start, is given. The total needed difficulty (TTD) for the last block to be mined before the switch to PoS.
The Bellatrix fork, which will develop the software required for clients to operate the consensus layer, must be carried out before the Merge can be finished. On September 6, which is around 10 days before the Merge, this is planned to occur.
Following the Sepolia merge on July 7 and Ropsten on June 9, the Goerli testnet was the final testnet to successfully complete its own switch to PoS on August 12.
The Ethereum network’s energy usage is anticipated to decrease by more than 99.99 percent following the Merge, and it will be better able to fend off network threats and scale.
PoW miners must persevere
There are rumors that the original PoW version of Ethereum will still be used by Ether (ETH) miners, many of whom depend on the income from PoW block rewards, in order to retain their earning potential.
Chandler Guo, a known supporter of PoW chains and a Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum miner, is leading the fight for miners to fork the Ethereum network and build an Ethereum PoW (ETHW) chain. Guo has retweeted a number of comments that support the idea that there is enough place in the market for two forms of Ethereum to exist.
He has promised to publish the code required to carry out an ETH PoW split that avoids the difficulty bomb, a technique that sharply cuts the block reward for miners in an effort to discourage them from trying to produce any more blocks. The mainnet merge will happen right before the difficulty bomb.
ETHW is currently trading at $72.5 on Poloniex, down roughly 7.5 percent from the previous day. According to CoinGecko, ETH has increased by 1.5 percent during the last 24 hours to $1,881.54.
