Ethereum devs tip The Merge will occur in August ‘if everything goes to plan’

Ethereum’s long-awaited migration to a proof-of-stake (PoS) statement mechanism, which has been pushed backmost clip and clip again, looks acceptable to hap sometime successful August. Hopefully. 

Preston Van Loon, a halfway developer of the Ethereum (ETH) network, told attendees astatine the Permissionless league that the transition, known arsenic the Merge, would hap sometime successful August if everything plays retired according to plan.

Ethereum halfway Dev @preston_vanloon conscionable said the eth merge is ready,they are present lone testing, and expects the merge to hap successful August. Packed country @Permissionless are excited astir it. Great question @TrustlessState. Also connected sheet @drakefjustin pic.twitter.com/vX4beNatJ5

— Benjamin Cohen (benjicohen.eth) (@benjicohen421) May 19, 2022

Van Loon told the 5000 attendees that the squad was looking to marque the modulation earlier the alleged “difficulty bomb” would degrade the web arsenic scheduled.

“As acold arsenic we know, if everything goes to plan, August—it conscionable makes sense. If we don’t person to determination [the trouble bomb], let’s bash it arsenic soon arsenic we can.”

Echoing this sentiment was chap Ethereum researcher Justin Drake stated that ensuring the Merge went up rapidly was a apical priority, sharing his “strong tendency to marque this hap earlier trouble weaponry successful August.”

The “difficulty bomb” refers to the programme coded into the Ethereum blockchain that intentionally slows down the network. It was designed to promote the modulation to PoS by making it much hard for miners to enactment down connected the proof-of-work (PoW) concatenation aft the Merge.

On April 11, Ethereum developer Tim Beiko announced that The Merge had erstwhile again been delayed. Despite a palmy “shadow fork test”, Beiko said that The Merge would not beryllium implemented successful June arsenic expected. According to Beiko, developers request to enactment rapidly to debar the trouble bomb, otherwise, they volition request to present yet different update to hold the bomb.

“If lawsuit developers bash not deliberation they tin deploy The Merge to mainnet earlier artifact times are slowed excessively much, it volition request to beryllium delayed again.”

The recommitment to the timeline comes successful the aftermath of this week’s quality the Ethereum web volition spot a “huge investigating milestone,” with the Ropsten testnet Merge acceptable to beryllium conducted connected June 8. The Ropsten testnet Merge volition spot the PoW trial web combined with a caller PoS statement furniture testnet. It volition simulate what volition hap erstwhile the existent Merge betwixt Ethereum and the Beacon Chain yet takes spot and it becomes a PoS network.

If The Merge is successfully implemented successful August, the last landmark connected the roadmap for Ethereum, formerly known arsenic Eth2, is the sharded chains upgrade slated to spell unrecorded successful aboriginal 2023. Until then, however, the web volition proceed to utilize layer-2 networks similar Polygon and Optimism to grip scalability and precocious transaction volumes.