Ethereum has successfully deployed Merge on the “Rposten” test network, which is one of the biggest steps towards enabling the long-awaited proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism.
“Merge” is one of the most critical elements of the upgrade of the “consensus layer”, formerly known as “Ethereum 2.0”.
During “Merge”, Ethereum’s proof-of-work (PoW) chain is combined with the Beacon Chain which operates with a PoS mechanism. Since this happened successfully on Ropsten, it means that Ethereum is well on its way to deploying “Merge” on its main network.
Highly anticipated and with high expectations
Currently Ethereum works with the Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, i.e. like Bitcoin. PoW is a mechanism that offers high levels of security, however it has been criticized for possible environmental pollution.
PoS, on the other hand, makes the mining process completely virtual. The user has to “lock in” a certain amount of ETH (in the case of Ethereum this amount is 32 ETH) and staked on blocks that he knows will be added afterwards. The successful validator receives a portion of the block reward when that block joins the blockchain. The transition from PoW to PoS will reduce Ethereum’s power consumption by 99.95%.
There is of course the other school of thought that PoS favors wealthier users, as it is not easy for many to deposit 32 ETH ($57,000 at today’s prices).
This transition from the PoW mechanism to PoS is eagerly anticipated by the cryptocurrency community, and more than a few have criticized Ethereum for delaying its completion. For their part, Ethereum’s core developers argued that the slow pace of development of the new mechanism was due to the sheer complexity required by “Merge” and the multiple changes required in Ethereum’s source code.
Recently, during a conference, Vitalik Buterin had said that while August is the target month for the merger on the main network, he noted that there may be a “risk of delay”.
What happens next?
Before Ropsten, core developers successfully developed merger in the Ethereum “shadow fork”. The “shadow fork” is a private installation area of the mainnet where developers can test various features.
Now that “Merge” has been tested on Ropsten, if all goes well, it will then be deployed on the test networks Goerli and Seoplia before finally being deployed on the mainnet (main network).
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