Ethereum Foundation Confirms September 6 as the Date for the Merge

Ethereum Foundation has formally confirmed September 6 as the date for The Merge, the long-awaited move from proof of work to proof of stake.

Ethereum Foundation wrote in a blog post on Wednesday:

“Following years of hard work, Ethereum’s proof-of-stake upgrade is finally here! The successful upgrade of all public testnets is now complete, and The Merge has been scheduled for the Ethereum mainnet.”

The Merge will be divided into two upgrades known as Bellatrix and Paris. According to the blog post, Bellatrix will occur on September 6 at 11:34 a.m. UTC, and Paris will occur between September 10 and September 20.

Source: Ethereum Foundation

Instead of miners, validators are used in the proof of stake. Proof-of-stake validators, as opposed to proof-of-work miners, lock up quantities of money to demonstrate their reliability to the network. The changeover has long been a goal of Ethereum’s developers. On August 10, the Goerli testnet successfully merged in the final testing process.

Ethereum Foundation comms lead Joseph Schweitzer was excited to share this information:

While this officializes the date, Ethereum’s engineers had already indicated the September 6 date for the Bellatrix update on an August 11 call. During that call, they also set September 15 as the date for the Paris update.

However, due to block times and hash rate fluctuations, the date may change. The Paris upgrade could happen up to five days earlier or later than predicted. If the hash rate falls significantly, the developers may override the chain manually, as they did on the Ropsten testnet.

DISCLAIMER: The Information on this website is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your own research before investing.