Ethereum Upgrade Incoming

Ethereum has had hiccups as far as the merge is concerned. At times, it looked like it would never happen. With so many delays, it seemed that it would be easier to believe once it happened. Well, pending any issues (huge IF), the Ethereum Foundation announced yesterday that the long-awaited merge is set to commence on September 6. Let’s take a closer look at the timeline.

• The Bellatrix upgrade is set to activate on September 6. This upgrade is responsible for setting the rest of the merge process in motion. The merge itself will be completed at some point throughout September 10 – 20th.
• As a reminder, this merge is essentially an upgrade that will transition the blockchain from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. One goal regarding this transition is to reduce the blockchain’s energy consumption.
• Throughout the period of September 10 – 20th, the difficulty level will be increased to the point where proof-of-work crypto mining will no longer be possible.

There was a bug that was going to delay the merge, but it appears developers were able to provide a fix and patch the bug after only one day. This merge will come after a series of practice runs that tested the transitions in multiple test network environments.