Ethereum Dev Reveals the Merge to Ensue in August ‘If Everything Goes to Plan’

Preston Van Loon, a core Ethereum developer, says that the network’s long-awaited switch to proof-of-stake will presumably take place in August.

Devs Eye August Launch for PoS

According to the latest estimates, Ethereum’s long-delayed move toward PoS (proof of stake) consensus is expected to take place sometime in August.

A core developer of the Ethereum network, Preston Van Loon, informed attendees at the Permissionless conference that the shift, known as The Merge, would take place sometime in August if everything goes according to plan.

Van Loon told the audience of 5,000 people that the team was aiming to make the switch before the network’s so-called “difficulty bomb” degraded it as designed.

“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.”

Justin Drake, a fellow Ethereum researcher, echoed this attitude, stating that expediting the Merge was a key priority and expressing his “strong desire to make this happen before the August difficulty bomb.”

For the uninitiated, the term “difficulty bomb” refers to the program coded in the Ethereum blockchain that purposefully slows down the network’s transactions.  It was intended to facilitate the transition to PoS by making it more difficult for miners to remain on the proof-of-work (PoW) chain following The Merge.

Ethereum Merge to Delay Till Fall

Tim Beiko, an Ethereum developer, announced on April 11 that The Merge had been postponed again. Despite a successful “shadow fork test,” Beiko stated that The Merge would not be deployed in June as planned. Beiko says that if devs don’t act swiftly, they’ll have to provide yet another update to delay the difficulty 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 schedule follows this week’s announcement that the Ethereum network would experience a “massive testing milestone” on June 8, when the Ropsten testnet Merge will occur. During the Ropsten testnet Merge, the PoW test network and the new PoS consensus layer testnet will be merged. It will simulate what would occur after the actual Merge between Ethereum and the Beacon Chain occurs, and the network transforms into a PoS network.

Investors Anticipate ETH2

Investors are anticipating Ethereum 2’s new capabilities, which is fueling their enthusiasm. For instance, the technique for distributing new coins has shifted from PoW to PoS. Ethereum 2 power consumption is expected to be reduced by around 99% with this change. In addition, the PoS mechanism will produce a smaller number of ETH coins per time than the Ethereum Core.

If The Merge is successfully executed in August, the final milestone on the plan for Ethereum, formerly known as Eth2, will be the implementation of sharded chains in early 2023. Layer-2 networks like Polygon and Optimism will continue to be used in the meantime to handle high transaction volumes and scalability issues on the network.