A tentative date by which the long-awaited “merger” is likely to be completed has been set by the Ethereum developers.
The update came from Beacon Chain’s community manager, who noted that all indications are that September 19 will be the day of Blockchain’s transition from a proof of work (PoW) mechanism to a proof of participation (PoS) mechanism. Of course, to confirm this date, he urged people to wait for the network’s official announcements.
The Beacon Chain
Beacon Chain is the PoS version of Ethereum that currently runs alongside the PoW-based core network. It was launched in December 2020, marking the start of the migration/upgrade process. The “merge” (Merge), scheduled for September, will essentially move Ethereum’s business to the Beacon Chain.
The test networks
Through Superphiz.eth, a detailed description of the next steps for Ethereum was provided, including a final test on the network’s latest test network, Goerli. Test networks offer developers a secure environment to test new updates and changes to a blockchain network without the risk of crashing the core network or causing downtime.
The merger and Ethereum 2.0
The merger will see Ethereum move into a new era, leaving behind one consensus mechanism it has been operating with until now and starting another. Instead of miners around the world confirming transactions and cutting new blocks, so-called validators will do the same. A validator on the Ethereum network is an entity that has deposited at least 32 Ethereum into the Beacon Chain.
This deposit of 32 ETH keeps the entity financially aligned to continue to verify transactions, as if the verifiers are not doing their job properly then part of their deposit can be taken away from them. Conversely, if they continue to maintain high uptime and prevent fraudulent activity on the network, validators can earn additional Ethereum for their services.
Other popular PoS-based networks include Solana, Avalanche, Cosmos and several others. None, however, are as popular as Ethereum in terms of investor and developer activity. DeFi Llama’s metrics show that Ethereum holds more than 62% of the total activity in the smart contracts platform space.
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