Ethereum Merge: Date is Set – this is Now Important!

The highly anticipated merge of the Ethereum blockchain is not long in coming. Now an official date has finally been set. CoinPro tells you what is important now.

On What Date Will the Merge Take Place?

The Merge refers to the fusion between the previous Ethereum mainnet and the newer Beacon Chain, which has been public since December 1, 2020. While the old mainnet is based on Proof of Work, the Beacon Chain runs on Proof of Stake.

Through the Merge, the mainnet switches to Proof of Stake and is expected to experience some improvements. But when exactly will the Merge take place? So far, there have only been semi-official and imprecise statements on this.

Ethereum developers recently mentioned September 15 as the likely date of the event in a publicly shared conversation. A Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD) was already entered under Ethereum’s Github library.

Since yesterday it is finally certain. The Ethereum Foundation states: The Merge will take place between September 10 and 20, 2022. Although this is a prediction with a high probability, theoretically this quite large period of time could be wrong.

The TTD is to blame. It refers to the sum of the mining difficulty of all blocks that must be reached for the Merge to occur. It is 58750000000000000000000. The hash rate of the network defines the mining difficulty.

However, since the hash rate is not constant but volatile, no exact time can be predicted. Theoretically, a rescheduling could occur if the hash rate suddenly drops extremely sharply. However, this is unlikely.

Reading tip: Ethereum: Does Merge lead to more censorship?

What Do Ethereum Investors Need to Consider?

For simple holders of Ethereum or tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, there is nothing to consider. They can sit back and relax. The situation is different for operators of nodes. In order for the network nodes to participate in the changeover and continue to perform their task seamlessly, operators must provide two different clients.

The use of a faulty Geth version should be avoided.

Miners should note that their devices will no longer be able to do work for the Ethereum mainnet after the Merge. Many miners have therefore already announced the switch to Ethereum Classic (ETC) or a fork of the ETH blockchain.