Ethereum’s Bellatrix Upgrade Is Live

Blockchain
Written By Francisko Kim

Ethereum’s price went up around 5% this morning following the announcement of the Bellatrix upgrade. This upgrade is on the consensus layer or the Beacon Chain (proof-of-stake chain). Bellatrix is expected to be the final pre-merge update, preparing for the Paris upgrade which will bring the switch to proof-of-stake. The Paris upgrade is expected between September 10-20.

The Beacon Chain currently runs in parallel to Ethereum’s mainnet, while the mainnet processes all transactions. After “The Merge”, Ethereum will fully transition from mining (proof-of-work) to staking (proof-of-stake).

The Bellatrix upgrade is preparing the Beacon Chain to merge with the mainnet and take over processing transactions and producing blocks after the Paris upgrade.

Paris will upgrade the execution layer’s portion of the transition. Once the execution layer reaches or exceeds the TTD, the next block will be produced by a Beacon Chain validator. Once this first block is produced and finalized on the Beacon Chain (proof-of-stake chain), The Merge is considered complete.

Ethereum is hovering around $1,659 at the time of writing. the 24 hour volume has also increased 83% to over $19 billion.

The switch to proof-of-stake is expected to cut the network’s power consumption significantly. The mining process involves the use of ASIC (Application-specific integrated circuit) miners, which are made to only mine certain cryptocurrencies. These machines require a lot of power and are very costly. Riot Blockchain was planning a 1 Gigawatt mining facility in Texas but it’s unclear whether these plans are still ongoing with the current market and company standings.

Staking requires no initial investment besides the amount being staked. To run a node or act as a network validator, a certain amount must be staked. The Merge should also introduce lower fees eventually.

Francisko Kim
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