It seems to finally be happening; the Ethereum (ETH) merge! During the day Consensus Layer Call 93, a sort of meeting of Ethereum developers, the date of the merge was set for September 15 or 16. That is slightly earlier than originally expected.
‘The Ethereum merge is coming’
The merge is part of the major ETH2 update and the crypto industry has been looking forward to this update for years. The developers of Ethereum have extensively tested the merge across the various testnets, with the final dress rehearsal being successful yesterday.
Due to the success, a date can finally be set. The Date Ethereum Officially Switches From proof of work (PoW) nasty proof of stake (PoS) is September 15 or 16. There is some leeway in the fact that it is never exactly certain when a transaction block will be mined by miners.
The Ethereum mainnet merge has been tentatively scheduled for around September 15th/16th.
The Merge is coming
— sassal.eth 🦇🔊🐼 (@sassal0x) August 11, 2022
The word merge is the English word for merging and denotes the merging of the ‘old’ PoW Ethereum network and the new PoS network. This PoS network is currently already running parallel to the current network in the form of the Beacon Chain. These will eventually merge after which Ethereum will officially continue as a PoS network.
2 more steps needed for Ethereum merge
Before that happens, the mainnet, or the main network of Ethereum, has to take two more steps. First, that’s the Bellatrix update. That is expected to be implemented on September 6 and is the upgrade that triggers the merge process.
A few days later, the Paris update will be implemented. This update will take place as soon as the hash rate, whether the miners’ computing power has reached a certain value. From then on, the merge will be official.
It should be noted that it is not guaranteed that the merge will actually take place. If problems occur in the coming month, the merge can of course be postponed. Nevertheless, the network has never been this close to the switch!