Ethereum Foundation Announces Merge Update

The Merge has been in the works for the past few years to transition the network from proof-of-work (POW; mining) to proof-of-stake (POS; staking). In a blog post uploaded yesterday on Aug 24, important dates were announced including The Merge schedule.

The mainnet Merge is finally ready after successfully upgrading all public testnets. The update will occur in two stages: Bellatrix upgrade then the Paris upgrade.

• The Bellatrix upgrade is scheduled for epoch 144896 which is expected on September 6, 2022. This upgrade will activate The Merge on the Beacon Chain.

• The Paris upgrade will be triggered once the networks total difficulty reaches 58750000000000000000000 which is expected between September 10-20. This difficulty threshold is called the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD).

  • Once the TTD is reached, the following block will be produced by a Beacon Chain validator. Once this block is finalized, The Merge is complete!

Updates for node operators and validators:

• Node operators and validators will both be required to run both execution layer (EL) and consensus layer (CL) clients to keep operating on the network post-merge.

  • The EL and CL client communicate over the Engine API and authenticate each other. 

• The Ethereum foundation updated their guide on building & running a node to reflect these changes in more detail.

• Validator rewards will still accrue on the Beacon chain but will require a subsequent network upgrade for withdrawal function.

  • Devs chose this approach to minimize any risks to the update by excluding non-transition changes.

  • Withdrawals from the Beacon chain is expected to be available in the first update after The Merge.

• Regular users just holding Ether aren’t required to prepare for the update in any way.