Ethereum is currently undergoing an update, after which its way of working will become more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Preston van Loon, a developer working on Ether 2.0, has said that if everything goes according to their current plan, ‘Merge’ will be ready for launch by August this year. Developers are re-coding Ethereum’s mining protocol from its existing ‘Proof of Work’ (PoW) model to ‘Proof of Stake (PoS). The Merge upgrade is reportedly expected to reduce Ethereum’s power consumption by 99 percent.
Speaking at a public event, Van Loon said that Merge is almost ready. Just a few more tests are far from entering the industry.
Ethereum core Dev @preston_vanloon just said the eth merge is ready,they are now only testing, and expects the merge to happen in August. Packed room @Permissionless are excited about it. Great question @TrustlessState. Also on panel @drakefjustin pic.twitter.com/vX4beNatJ5
— Benjamin Cohen (benjicohen.eth) (@benjicohen421) May 19, 2022
However, there is a possibility of a ‘difficulty bomb’ explosion, which could further delay the launch of the merge, which was initially said to go live in June.
CoinTelegraph’s report explains that the “difficulty bomb” is a program coded in the Ethereum blockchain, which deliberately slows down the network.
If it is triggered, this difficulty bomb will need to introduce another update to delay its trigger. This will further extend the launch time of the merge.
Van Loon said, “As far as we know, if everything goes according to plan, it should be released in August. If we don’t need to move [the difficulty bomb], we’ll do it as soon as possible.” ”
In April, Merge Developers had successfully tested the network using the so-called Mennet Shadow Fork.
At the time, another Ethereum developer, Marius van der Wisden, called it a “great success.”
