According to a well-known member of the blockchain community, “the merge,” Ethereum‘s long-awaited update, might occur on September 15 or 16 rather than the previously predicted date of October 1. The Merge is the union between Ethereum’s new Beacon Chain proof-of-stake consensus layer with its current execution layer (the Mainnet that we currently utilize). Instead of using energy-intensive mining, it uses staked ETH to safeguard the network. An incredibly exciting step toward achieving the more scalability, security, and sustainability goals of Ethereum.
Originally anticipated to occur on or around September 19, the upgrade will complete Ethereum’s transition to a Beacon Chain Proof-of-Stake consensus method. On August 11 Anthony Sassano who is the co-founder of the Ethereum website EthHub posted on his Twitter that the merge has been scheduled for the 15/16th of September.
There are still two levels left in Ethereum’s upgrading, named “Paris” and “Bellatrix.” Developers revealed that “Bellatrix” will occur on September 6 during the conference call. When Ethereum’s hash rate (a marker of a network’s computing capabilities) exceeds a specific threshold, the last phase of the upgrade, called “Paris,” will take place. Currently, September 15 is the anticipated date to bring about that.
But given that a network’s hash rate is not constant and may rise or fall over time, this could alter in the upcoming days and weeks.
What will happen because of this Ethereum Merge?
The current Ethereum chain which we are using right now is known as the Mainnet. Proof-of-work has protected Mainnet since its launch. It holds each transaction, smart contract, and balance since Ethereum’s launch in July 2015.
Another Ethereum chain Beacon Chain was established on December 1, 2020, and it has since functioned alongside Mainnet as a separate blockchain.
Transactions on the Mainnet have not been handled by the Beacon Chain. Instead, it has agreed on active validators and their account balances in order to gain consensus on its own state. The time for the Beacon Chain to agree on more is now approaching after lengthy testing. Including execution layer transactions and account balances, the Beacon Chain will serve as the consensus engine for all network data following The Merge.
The Beacon Chain will now become the official mechanism for producing blocks after the merge. The old data won’t be lost, it will still exist. The complete transactional history of Ethereum will be merged as Mainnet and Beacon Chain are combined. You are not required to do a single thing and your money is safe.
Mainly four things will happen because of this merge and these are: –
- Ethereum will shift from the Proof of Work blockchain to Proof of Stake
- There will be no need for the mining process as Participating nodes will step in and lock up ETH, the network’s native cryptocurrency, to maintain network security. Earlier it involved challenging mathematical tasks that several machines compete to answer and uses a lot of energy. Users of the new technique will utilize their already-existing ether reserves to verify transactions and create tokens.
- This will consume less energy as the process will be more energy efficient. This merge will reduce the energy consumption by 99.95%
- This upgrade will work as deflation in which the increase in the supply will slow down and slow supply will increase the demand for Ethereum which will be beneficial for the growth in price. Even at the moment when the news of the merger was released, the price of Ethereum is increasing continuously.
The world’s leading smart-contract blockchain is anticipated to become quicker, more scalable, and significantly more energy efficient thanks to this long-awaited and much-discussed improvement.
In an Ethereum community held in France in July, the co-founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin talked about the upcoming upgrades that will be helpful in the decentralization.
Over the past few years, Ethereum’s transition has been continuously delayed. The merge has reportedly moved slowly in order to give enough time for research, development, and implementation, according to core developers. But finally, it is happening in the middle of September.
Many other researchers and people connected to Ethereum also made tweets to confirm the merger of Ethereum on 15/16 September. These include the names Ansgar Dietrichs and Christine Kim. who is the researcher at the Ethereum foundation.
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