Summary:
- The Merge on the Ropston testnet on Wednesday was largely successful as the pace picks up for Ethereum 2.0.
- A few bugs remain with client pairs and validating block proposals, but ETH developers assured that fixes are on the way.
- Developers also asked the community to help spot and report any bugs.
- Goerli And Sepolia Testnets are the next stages before The Merge ships to Ethereum’s mainnet later this year.
- ETH’s price remains under $2,000 despite the upcoming switch to a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism.
Ethereum’s transition from a Proof-of-Work mechanism to a Proof-of-Stake consensus is another step closer after The Merge on Ropsten took place on Wednesday. The test was largely successful although a few bugs were spotted.
According to a core developer on Twitter, a few clients experienced timeouts during block production and failed to validate transactions. Fixes for the issue are already in the works, per tweets reposted by Tim Beiko.
ETH developers also asked the community to contribute to the process by keeping an eye out for bugs while tests and monitoring continue on Ropsten.
Ropsten is one of the oldest testnets on the Ethereum network and The Merge simulation on the testnet represents a significant moment as developers move closer to a mainnet launch. During the test, Ropsten’s code and code from the Beacon chain were combined to determine if block production and validation would run smoothly during the transition.
The Beacon chain is a sister chain that runs parallel to the main Ethereum network and leverages the optimized PoS consensus layer.
Moving forward, The Merge is scheduled to happen on two key public testnets ahead of the mainnet launch expected to happen between August and October 2022. Tests on Goerli and Sepolia are scheduled to happen within the next few weeks.
Other testnets like Kiln will shut down by end of the year, per Tim Beiko’s tweet.
Ethereum (ETH) Trading Under $2K Despite Successful Merge On Key Testnet
Notably, ETH is below $2,000 regardless of the progress made towards actualizing a watershed moment in Ethereum’s history. In an interview with Blockworks, Geode Finance CEO Simon Furlong opined that users and investors might not fully understand the implications The Merge could have for Ethereum as an asset.
The switch to PoS is expected to drastically cut down the network’s enemy consumption and finally mitigate high gas fees, a critical issue closely associated with ETH’s chain.
Also, the network’s transaction capacity should shoot up exponentially to match or exceed the throughput boasted by other PoS blockchains like Solana.