Ethereum’s Last Test Before the Merge ‘Quite Good’ Despite ‘Confusion’

 

The Goerli testnet merge, Ethereum (ETH)‘s third and final testnet merge before the blockchain transitions to proof-of-stake (PoS) from its current proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism, has ostensibly been successful. 

The merge was executed today at around 1:45 UTC. The testnet merge saw the Goerli testnet merge with the Prater testnet, a PoS beacon chain, and represents the final test run before the actual Merge takes place.

The Merge is Ethereum’s much-anticipated upgrade when the current Ethereum Mainnet will merge with the beacon chain PoS system. The two previous testnet merges, Ropsten and Sepolia, were largely successful, and Goerli seems to be successful too.

A successful Merge = chain finalizes. Sure, participation rate dropped and looks like there may have been an issue with one of the clients but the Merge worked. We'll likely see minor issues like this with the upgrade on mainnet too but the point is, the Merge worked.

— Christine Kim (@christine_dkim) August 11, 2022

“The probability that The Merge will happen next month just went up considerably [in my opinion],”  Lucas Nuzzi, head of R&D at crypto intelligence firm Coin Metrics, said. 

The final transition to PoS is estimated to happen around September 20.

However, the Goerli testnet merge was not quite seamless. Ethereum developer Marius van der Wijden said the developers didn’t finalize on Goerli earlier because there “was some confusion on the network because of two different terminal blocks and lots of non-updated nodes.” However, he added that so far, “it looks quite good.”

When asked about the two terminal blocks and how it could have affected the merge if it was mainnet instead of a testnet, Wijden said theoretically, this could have happened, and they “have code to handle two terminal blocks.” He also said the merge would have been successful if this was the mainnet. 

1) In theory yes, but it might happen, so we have code to handle two terminal blocks
2) No, the extra block was due to how clique works
3) Yes, we did not intervene (and can't) except for contacting the parties that did not upgrade their nodes

— MariusVanDerWijden (@vdWijden) August 11, 2022

According to the Ethereum Foundation, the Goerli merge is the final opportunity for users to ensure that their PoS validators are configured correctly before the mainnet transition.

At 06:15 UTC, ETH trades at USD 1,896 and is up 13% in a day and 17% in a week. The price also jumped 73% in a month, trimming its annual loss to less than 40%.
____
Learn more: 
– The Merge’s Long Term Impact on Ethereum
– EthereumPoW Fork Won’t ‘Significantly’ Harm Ethereum – Vitalik Buterin

– Major Bitcoin & Crypto Companies Warn of ‘Extreme’ Risk in Proof-of-Stake Systems
– Hayes Asks ‘Forgiveness’ for Calling Ethereum a Shitcoin, Doubles Down on ETH

– The Compromises and Benefits of Ethereum Switching to a Proof-of-Stake Network
– Vitalik Buterin says The Merge is Not ‘Priced in’ as Investor Promises to Fork Ethereum