Ethereum’s ‘huge testing milestone’ in preparation for Proof-of-Stake

Ethereum’s main public testnet, Ropsten, which allows for blockchain development testing before deployment on the mainnet, is estimated to undergo “the Merge” on June 8 in preparation for the main Ethereum blockchain to switch to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.

Parithosh Jayanthi, who works in devops at the Ethereum Foundation, merged the pull request on GitHub today, meaning that this code is set to be implemented, The Block reported.

The merge is Ethereum’s long-awaited move to becoming a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain, under which the current Proof-of-Work chain will merge with the new Proof-of-Stake one. It’s a big change and there have been multiple tests to see whether it will work. The move to do so on Ethereum’s main public testnet is one of these final checks.

When it comes to testing, such a transition happens in two parts. First a genesis version of the consensus layer is created, then the network – in this case the Ropsten testnet – goes through the merge. The first part will take place on May 30, while the merge is estimated to take place on June 8.

“Merging Ropsten is a huge testing milestone towards Ethereum’s mainnet merge later this year,” said Preston Van Loon, an Ethereum core developer at Prysmatic Labs, on Twitter.

Anthony Sassano, co-founder of the Ethereum research tool EthHub, told The Block that the public testnet going through the merge transition is the final stage before it happens on the main Ethereum blockchain. “I believe there will be three public testnets run through the transition and if all goes smoothly then mainnet will be scheduled shortly after,” he said.

Sassano estimated that the merge on mainnet could happen as early as August but stressed that this is his own guess and no official timeline has been presented.

In mid-April, Ethereum developer Tim Beiko said that the merge is now expected a “few months after June,” adding: “No firm date yet, but we’re definitely in the final chapter of PoW on Ethereum.”

Both Bitcoin and Ether are excavated using a Proof-of-Work (PoW) methodology, also called mining, where thousands of miners, or network nodes, participate in resolving complex mathematical tricks. This is a massive power-gasping process that removes the factor to cause more pollution every year, encouraging fears about crypto in a low-carbon world.

On May 19, Ethereum is trading at around $1,919, down by 5% over the past 24 hours, 6% over the past week, and 36% over the past month. Additionally, the coin is down by over 60% from its all-time high of $4,878 recorded in November 2021, according to Yahoo Finance.