After Ropsten and Sepolia, the Goerli testnet has finally gone Proof-of-Stake (PoS). Last big line before the update of The Merge on Ethereum (ETH), the developers will still have to observe the behavior of the network during a few days. If all goes well, The Merge should be available on the mainnet by mid-September.
Goerli testnet now in proof of stake (PoS)
The Ethereum (ETH) development team has successfully completed the third and final test before the long-awaited update to the mainnet.
Last night, at around 3:45 a.m. ET, the Goerli testnet officially transitioned from Proof of Authority (PoA) to Proof of Stake (PoS) when the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD), the unit of measurement for blocks that is supposed to determine the start of the fork, exceeded 10,790,000. The transition is considered successful when the next block has been produced by a validator in the Beacon Chain.
On the developers’ side, they had to merge the code of Goerli with that of Prater, the equivalent of the Beacon Chain for Ethereum, following the Bellatrix update of July 27 on the testnet. In order for the transition to be successful, the validators of the 2 networks had to perform the update of their respective clients in tandem.
According to one of the developers, the Goerli update can be considered really successful by this evening or tomorrow, the time to verify that no major problems appear. If everything goes well, The Merge should see the light of day on Ethereum during September, according to the latest schedule.
Ethereum update expected
The Goerli network is the latest testnet to perform the Merge update, following in the footsteps of Ropsten and Sepolia, which successfully transitioned in June and July respectively.
The Merge is considered the most important update in Ethereum’s history since its inception in 2015, and brings a real paradigm shift as Ether mining will now no longer be possible – at least on the official network – and will be replaced by a system of validators, which should reduce the ecological footprint of the second largest blockchain by around 99% and increase its scalability.
Since the announcement of the timeline in mid-July, Ether has been observing an upward trend, and this has been further enhanced by the Goerli update. The price of ETH has risen from around $1,700 to over $1,900 in less than 24 hours.
The next major update to Ethereum, expected in 2023, is about sharding and should significantly reduce the network’s transaction fees and make it easier to become a validator.
Either way, the likely success of the Merge update could well give some oxygen back to the cryptocurrency market as a whole.
