Ethereum is getting closer to changing its consensus from Proof of Work, to Proof of Stake. One gets the impression that work is gaining momentum, as the upcoming Merge is set to take place a few days earlier than originally planned.
New Ethereum Merge release date
Ethereum developers have officially announced that the consensus merge date is expected to be September 15. As we reported a few weeks ago, in an article titled “Ethereum developers confirm date for The Merge,” the original plan took into account September 19.
The update to this information comes after Tim Beiko and Prysmatic Labs co-founder Terence Tsao participated in Thursday’s developer call. They agreed that Merge will occur when Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD) hits 58750000000000000000000000000. Confirmation of the findings is available on GitHub, in a post titled “Tentative mainnet TTD.” TTD is the planned total difficulty for the block to be mined at the time of the merger.
It is worth noting that the new date is a projection that is still subject to change. Nevertheless, in the market it is causing an uptick, as it indicates the density of work before Merge.
What’s ahead of the Merge?
The Bellatrix fork is an essential element that must appear on the Ethereum network for Merge to fully come to fruition. Its goal is to implement the software necessary for clients to launch the consensus layer. It was scheduled for September 6, literally days before the merge.
Ethereum developers, on the other hand, can boast of success, focusing their attention around the Goerli test network. This one has successfully completed the consensus merger process in recent days. This is a very good prognosis before the final implementation of Merge into reality.
Ethereum miners are fighting for their own
The process of Ethereum’s transition from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake, so to speak, spends the sleep of the miners. Not surprisingly, they are earning money after all, thanks to the rewards generated by validating blocks of the network. There are indications from this that the currently functioning chain will nevertheless be maintained by them. One miner, known as Chandler Guo, is working to fork Ethereum so that its PoW version will continue to operate. According to him, there is enough room in the industry for the presence of two versions of the cryptocurrency.
He plans to release the code necessary to carry out the ETH PoW fork (ETHW). Its disclosure is expected to take place even before Merge.
In turn, Ethereum’s transition to PoS alone is expected to result in a nearly 99.99% decrease in network consumption. At the same time, Ethereum will retain its ability to repel attacks, and the scalability of the project is expected to improve significantly.
