When the Bellatrix upgrade on Ethereum Merge is turned on, the Merge process starts. The Merge is likely to be finished between Sept. 13 and 16.
Ethereum is getting better.
The most popular blockchain platform in the world is about to go through a big change that will make it greener and make it easier to improve in many ways. It’s very important for new areas like decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), but its immediate effects on Ethereum’s speed, scalability, and fees are often exaggerated. Let’s dive in.
What exactly is The Ethereum Merge?
First, a technical definition, mostly taken from Ethereum.org: The Merge is an update to the Ethereum platform that will combine the Ethereum Mainnet and the Beacon Chain. This is a change from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.
If you don’t know much about blockchain and cryptocurrencies, that probably didn’t make much sense. The Merge is an upgrade to Ethereum that gets rid of traditional mining. This means that instead of having powerful computers solve math puzzles to run the network and make new coins, owners of the underlying currency, ether or ETH, can stake it (hence the name “proof-of-stake”) to power the network.
Ethereum Merge is now officially going on, and it’s likely to start between Sept. 13 and 16. Today, the Bellatrix upgrade went live. This is the first step in moving Ethereum’s proof-of-work (PoW) chain to the proof-of-stake (PoS) Beacon Chain.
The activation was set to happen at epoch 144896, which was around 11:35 UTC.
After this, the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) value that will trigger the Merge will be 58,750,000,000,000,000,000,000. This is expected to happen between Sept. 10 and 20. Right now, people think it will happen around September 15.
When TTD reaches 58,750,000,000,000,000,000,000, the network’s Execution layer will be merged with the new Consensus layer, and the chain will continue using the PoS consensus mechanism.
During this time, the level of difficulty will rise to the point where Proof-of-Work mining on Ethereum won’t be possible anymore.
The Merger has been planned for a long time. The Beacon Chain was first made available in December 2020.
Last month, Ethereum ran its third testnet, Goerli, which was the last dress rehearsal for the mainnet Merge.
When the Ethereum Merge is done, the energy-intensive proof-of-work phase of Ethereum will be over. With sharding and rollups, Ethereum will be able to fix its scalability problems.
The price of ether (ETH) is $1,665, which is 6.24 percent higher than it was 24 hours ago.
