The ‘Merge’ between the Ethereum Mainnet and the ETH 2.0 Beacon Chain, which was supposed to happen in June, has been postponed.
Following weeks of anticipation, Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko announced in a tweet on Tuesday that the much-anticipated Ethereum Merge will be delayed. Beiko noted that the network’s transition to proof-of-stake is more likely to happen “in a few months after,” rather than in June.
The Merge marks Ethereum’s transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS). The network currently uses a proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism, in which a distributed network of computers competes to validate transactions.
The switch to a PoS system, in which users reserve the power to secure the network by “staking” ether, is projected to reduce Ethereum’s energy costs by 99 percent and make scaling easier.
Beiko’s announcement comes after Ethereum achieved a critical milestone on Monday, with the first successful shadow fork of the Ethereum mainnet — effectively a dry run for the network’s future consensus mechanism shift.
However, three recent shadow forks of Ethereum’s Goerli testnet showed flaws that need to be sorted out before the update is ready, according to a tweet from Ethereum DevOps engineer Parathi Jayanathi last weekend.
Ethereum’s Mainnet First-Ever Shadow Fork
Before the start of The Merge, Ethereum (ETH) developers initiated a testing campaign. The kiln was launched on multiple Ethereum testnets during the final pre-Merge testing session.
In addition, the first-ever ‘shadow fork’ in Ethereum (ETH) history went live on the main network on April 11, 2022. It did not affect the main network’s operations, but it did imitate the Merge specifications.
Despite minor difficulties with various implementations, the developers declared the bold endeavor a success.
