Tim Beiko unveiled some details about the long-awaited Ethereum merge and made some suggestions for the network’s developers and users.
Ethereum Core Developer Tim Beiko outlined the specifics of the upcoming Ethereum merge on Twitter, highlighting a few important points for developers of Ethereum apps and protocols. “Now is the time to make sure you are ready,” Beiko wrote.
The Ethereum merge, also known as The Merge, is a landmark event for the second most capitalized cryptocurrency. The process of transitioning ETH to PoS has taken almost three years, and the developers are ready to finally merge by the end of this summer. And although the exact date of the transition is still unknown, everything “goes according to plan” — assure the developers.
According to Beiko, ordinary users of protocols and applications can start actively testing them, and if they find bugs, report them to the developers. This will help increase the network load and see if it is ready for more tests.
Tim Beiko shared that testing across multiple testnets was primarily to make sure that existing Ethereum apps could work after the merge. He assured the developers of Ethereum applications and protocols that these problems would rarely occur while not ruled out. Beiko said that “99%+ of changes affect the protocol” and “there are almost no changes done to the application layer.”
By the way, the Ethereum blockchain project dominates the Web 3.0 sphere, and more than 4,000 developers are working on its open-source code.
Beiko sees the main task of Ethereum application developers at this stage as checking the readiness of their products for the merge, which were detailed in the Ethereum Foundation’s list of updates last year. The main post-merge modifications to the operation of smart contracts that could cause disruptions are as follows:
- Changing the beacon randomization method that runs applications on Ethereum.
- Reducing the block generation time on the network from 13 seconds to 12 seconds, potentially causing problems in smart contracts that use block production rate as a measure of time.
Despite delays in implementing the merge, the potential problems have been consolidated into a single echelon and are being actively monitored in various ETH-based protocols, said Beiko. Recall that the Ropsten testnet will merge with the main Ethereum blockchain on June 8. This network is expected to allow for realistic testing of the PoS algorithm before the main network is actually updated.
Finally, Beiko gave assurances that if any other problems arise during thorough testing and shadow forks, the merge will need to be postponed to ensure the network’s security. We will find out later whether this hints at another postponement of Ethereum’s transition to PoS.
Some users of the largest altcoin see the merge as a negative price catalyst due to the anticipated huge unlocking of ETH delegated for Ethereum 2.0 staking. Recall that more than 8.64 million ETH appeared to be blocked in the Beacon Chain smart contract network late last year. And as of today, according to the official portal, the number of blocked coins in the Ethereum network is already more than 13 million ETH.
