Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake has been a long time coming and the kick-off date for the much-anticipated software upgrade has been officially announced by The Ethereum Foundation on Wednesday. Called the Merge, the software upgrade has been in the works for years, and it will change the way Ethereum orders transactions to become more energy efficient.
Ether’s software upgrade is set to take the blockchain to a system called Proof of Stake, in which staked Ether tokens will order transactions, from its current system called Proof of Work, a mechanism which uses powerful computers to order transactions.
The Bellatrix upgrade will activate on the Beacon Chain on September 6. This upgrade is responsible for setting the rest of the Merge process in motion. The Terminal Total Difficulty value triggering The Merge is expected between September 10-20, 2022, the foundation disclosed.
“The successful upgrade of all public testnets is now complete, and The Merge has been scheduled for the Ethereum mainnet. The Merge is a two-step process. The first step is a network upgrade, followed by the execution layer’s transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake,” it explained.
The Merge represents a transition in how Ether tokens are minted and transactions are validated, away from mining blocks using complex computational puzzles under the proof-of-work method and toward proof-of-stake. Under the POS method, Ether holders can sign up to validate transactions on Ethereum based on stashes of locked up tokens.
“The Ethereum Foundation has released new information about the upcoming upgrade, indicating that all the preparations are going smoothly. The announcement confirmed that the upgrade will be fully completed between September 10th to 20th. This announcement might likely keep buyers active in the market, pushing the price of ETH up,” said Edul Patel, CEO and co-founder of global crypto investment platform Mudrex.
Ethereum is a blockchain-based software platform that can be used for sending and receiving value globally with its native cryptocurrency, ether, which is the second-biggest digital token. First proposed in 2013 by Russian-Canadian computer programmer Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum was designed to expand the utility of cryptocurrencies by allowing developers to create Ethereum-based applications, called ‘decentralized applications,’ or dapps.
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