A key Ethereum engineer, Preston Van Loon, expects that the network’s long-awaited migration to proof-of-stake will occur in August.
The long-awaited switch of Ethereum to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, which has been repeatedly postponed, is expected to take place in August if everything goes according to plan.
Preston Van Loon, an Ethereum network core developer, advised Permissionless participants that the transition, known as The Merge, will occur in August if all goes according to plan.
Van Loon notified the 5000 guests that the team aimed to complete the modification before the “difficulty bomb” crippled the network.
“As far as we know, if everything goes to plan, August — it just makes sense. If we don’t have to move [the difficulty bomb], let’s do it as soon as we can.”
This view was shared by fellow Ethereum researcher Justin Drake, who said that ensuring the Merge occurred as soon as possible was a top priority, indicating his “strong desire to make this happen before difficulty bomb in August.”
The “difficulty bomb” is a software component of the Ethereum blockchain that intentionally delays the network. It was designed to aid the transition to PoS by making it more difficult for miners to stay on the proof-of-work (PoW) chain after The Merge.
Tim Beiko, an Ethereum engineer, announced the postponement of The Merge on April 11. Beiko said that despite a successful “shadow fork test,” The Merge would not be implemented in June as anticipated. According to Beiko, developers must act swiftly to prevent the difficult bomb; else, they will be required to issue yet another patch to delay the bomb:
“If client developers do not think they can deploy The Merge to mainnet before block times are slowed too much, it will need to be delayed again.”
The recommitment to the timeline follows the revelation last week that the Ethereum network will hit a “significant testing milestone” on June 8, with the Ropsten testnet Merge. As part of the Ropsten testnet Merge, the PoW consensus layer testnet will be merged with the PoS consensus layer testnet. It will simulate what would occur when Ethereum and the Beacon Chain join and the network becomes a Proof-of-Stake network.
If The Merge is successfully completed in August, the last milestone on the Ethereum roadmap, formerly known as Eth2, will be the implementation of sharded chains in early 2023. Until then, the network will handle scalability and large transaction volumes via layer-2 networks like Polygon and Optimism.
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