During a July 14 conference call, developers (BINA:ETHUSDT) set a mid-September deadline for the merger.
The developers discussed the steps required before the merger could take place, and meeting organizer Tim Beiko suggested September 19.
This merge timeline is not final, but it is extremely exciting to see it come together. Please keep this in mind as a planning timeline and stay tuned for official announcements!
The date, however, is not a hard deadline and only serves as an unofficial roadmap. Superphiz.eth, one of the project's developers, tweeted that the date should be treated as a "planning timeline," and that the community should "be on the lookout for official announcements." Many observers expect the merger to take place around this time, so the September 19 suggestion comes as no surprise.
However, some people remain skeptical of the date and anticipate another delay. One Twitter user remarked sarcastically on the lack of mention of the year and predicted that the merger will not take place until the year 2050. Meanwhile, the developers' decision to postpone the Ethereum update has called into question the September deadline. While debating whether to postpone the Ethereum upgrade, some developers demanded a firm deadline. But Beiko pushed back, claiming that the team was already under a lot of pressure. Beiko previously stated that unless a significant event occurs, the Ethereum merger would take place between August and November. Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, said something similar. If there are no problems, he believes the merger will take place in August. However, it can also happen in September or October.
9th shadow split of Ethereum
Even though the merger's exact date has not yet been determined, additional network enhancements are proceeding as scheduled. Recently, Ethereum Shadow Fork 9 was made available. The Sepolia hard fork was used by engineers to test changes and releases on "a more demanding network," said Paritosh, a DevOps engineer at the Ethereum Foundation.
Related Reading: Merger-Preparing Ethereum's Shadow Fork 9
On July 14, Shadow Fork 9 took place earlier than expected. Paritosh attributed this to the developers' inaccurate time estimation and "a minor surge in the hashrate that hurried things up a bit." Since the Shadow Fork went live, there have been no glitches, and it sets the stage for the Goerli testnet Merge. The Goerli testnet merger would be the last before the Ethereum mainnet switches to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.
