Ethereum’s long-awaited transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) — known as “the Merge” — could be running ahead of schedule to occur on Sept. 15 or 16, according to Ethereum educator and cybersecurity professional Anthony Sassano.
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Fast facts
- “The Merge is coming,” Sassano tweeted early Friday morning, saying the information came from a core developer consensus layer call.
- The Merge will see Ethereum transition from using a proof-of-work consensus mechanism to PoS and had been slated for completion on Sept. 19.
- Ethereum completed its final testnet before the Merge on the “Georli” testnet on Thursday, meaning only two more steps remain. Known as “Bellatrix” and “Paris,” the Bellatrix upgrade is expected to take place on Sept. 6.
- The transition to Eth2 is expected to make the network faster and much more energy efficient.
- It does, however, remove the need for miners, prompting some miners to resist the transition and to push for a fork of the network to remain proof-of-work.
- Ethereum was trading at US$1,886 at 9:45 a.m. in Hong Kong, after gaining more than 100% in price in the last six weeks as anticipation for the Merge builds.
See related article: ‘The Merge’ can make crypto payments mainstream again: Vitalik Buterin