- The Ethereum merge has been deferred to a later date
- Ethereum’s testnet Ropsten is scheduled on June 8, 2022
- The merge is set to happen before the onset of the difficulty bomb that will take place in August
The anticipated Ethereum upgrade, the merge, is scheduled to take place in August of 2022.
Ethereum core developer, Preston Van Loon stated that the upgrade is set to take place at the mentioned time if all plans work as expected.
The merge will occur after the proof-of-stake is tested live on Ethereum’s testnet Ropsten. The test is also scheduled to take place on June 8, 2022. This test will be carried out to ensure that all will work fine after the shift from the proof-of-work mechanism to the proof-of-stake mechanism.
Vitalik Speaks On The Merge’s Delay
Vitalik Buterin confirmed there would be delays and that the merge could happen either in September or October.
“But of course, there’s always a risk of problems. There’s also a risk of delays. And so September is possible and October is possible as well,” he says.
Vitalik attended the Etherium Shanghai Web 3.0 Developer Summit, where he mentioned that “this will be a major test, larger than any of the tests that we have done before, taking a large existing test network with many applications with proof-of-work, moving into proof-of-stake.”
Justin Drake, who is Ethereum’s Researcher mentioned that the team is working to ensure the timelines mentioned are met. Justin stressed that the merge is set to happen before the onset of the difficulty bomb that will take place in August. The difficulty bomb aims to facilitate the move from the P-O-W consensus to the P-O-S consensus.
The Previous Report on The Merge
Ethereum’s upgrade has undergone several testnets that test every upgrade that is done on the Blockchain. The testnets aim to ensure that every upgrade functions as it is required.
The upgrade of the Ethereum network to the P-O-S consensus was previously tested on the March 15, 2022, testnet.
After the upgrade validators who are also the stakers will be working using an execution layer client. The initial stakers will be able to test out the Kiln testnet on the website which gives them a simplified user interface.
“Post-merge, validators need to ensure that transactions in blocks they create and attest to are valid. To do so, an execution layer client is required. While this expands validators’ responsibilities, it also gives a validator who proposes a block the right to its associated transaction priority fees (which currently go to miners).”
What to Expect After The Merge
The Ethereum merge comes after the London upgrade and more upgrades and improvements are expected to take place during the merge. This merge will make Ethereum more scalable and the proof-of-stake mechanism will make it to be more environmentally friendly in terms of energy consumption used during mining.
The POS is a carbon-neutral consensus and the move of Ethereum to this consensus has seen it acquire favors from prominent organizations such as the EU.
After the speculated merge more improvements and upgrades will continue taking place and the first improvement or upgrade will be the Surge which will focus on Ethereums scaling through sharding techniques. The Verge will then follow and will work on improving statelessness and make use of the Markle proof upgrade.
After the Verge, the Purge will then follow which will be handling the EVM simplification track. This upgrade will function along with the erasing of data from history and debts that are technical.
The final stage of the Ethereum upgrade will be Splurge which will focus on diversification and other extras that will be of importance.
