Ethereum has just completed its final round of testing for the Merge. The Goerli test network has successfully switched to Proof-of-Stake and now it’s the turn of the mainnet. That the optimism surrounding Ethereum is currently high is apparent from the price, which is now at a plus of 14 percent for the past 24 hours.
Ropsten, Sepolia and Gurlic
With Goerli, the third Ethereum test network has successfully passed the transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. Earlier this summer, Ropsten (June) and Sepolia (July) also switched to the new Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. The transition of the Goerli test network was announced at the end of July and took place in two phases.
First we had the Bellatrix upgrade on August 4 and the second step, Paris, was launched today after the Terminal Total Difficulty on the Goerli blockchain reached 10,790,000. The second phase of the upgrade marked the transition of the execution layer from Proof-of-Authority to Proof-of-Stake. The next block of the blockchain was nominated by a validator of the Beacon Chain.
What is Gurli?
Goerli is the test environment for Web3 developers to test applications before launching them on the Ethereum blockchain. Publishing applications on Ethereum can be costly and if there are errors, it is a waste for the project. In addition, there may be vulnerabilities in the application that hackers can exploit.
Furthermore, it is interesting about Goerli that, unlike Ropsten and Sepolia, it did not run on Proof-of-Work, but on Proof-of-Authority. For Goerli, it was therefore not about the transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake, as it will soon be the case for the Ethereum mainnet. According to the Ethereum Foundation, the Goerli Merge is the last chance for users to make sure their Proof-of-Stake setup is in order for the Merge.
The Merge is the biggest upgrade for Ethereum since the start of the blockchain in 2015, and brings an end to the energy-intensive mining process of Proof-of-Work. If everything goes smoothly with the Merge, there is a chance that Ethereum will single-handedly pull us out of the crypto winter. However, there is also a possibility that it will turn out to be a “buy the rumor, sell the news” event.
