Ethereum’s ninth shadow fork went live overnight Wednesday in Asia, marking one of the final steps before the merge with the proof-of-stake (PoS) Beacon Chain as part of the network’s transition to Ethereum 2.0.
See related article: Vitalik Buterin defends Ethereum ahead of merge; ‘not a security’
Fast facts
- A shadow fork is a test that focuses on one or two smaller functions at a time.
- This shadow fork focused on testing Ethereum’s “maximal extractable value” (MEV) boost feature, which is designed to create more competition between network validators, as well as other upgrades included in last month’s Sepolia hard fork.
- The third and final testnet merge, Goerli, is expected to take place in August.
- Ethereum’s price gained up to 10% overnight, outperforming the rest of the top 100 cryptocurrencies, before retreating slightly to trade at US$1,188 at press time, according to CoinMarketCap.
- According to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, PoS transition will mitigate validators accepting bribes to prioritize certain transactions.
- A PoS system rewards validators according to the amount staked in the network, whereas with Ethereum’s current proof-of-work model, the block mining is determined by computational power.
See related article: Ethereum will soon turn 7 — and its upcoming ‘Merge’ will be well worth the wait