Ethereum Will begin Testing the “Merge” from June 8 on Ropsten

Tim Beiko, an Ether investor recently shared details of the upcoming merge on the Ethereum network. The Ropsten merge is set to begin on the 8^th of June, 2022. More details regarding the merge were shared on Ethereum’s blog.

📣 Ropsten Merge Announcement 📣

Ethereum's longest lived PoW testnet is moving to Proof of Stake! A new beacon chain has been launched today, and The Merge is expected around June 8th on the network.

Node Operators: this is the first dress rehearsal💃https://t.co/0fDHObLOmn
— timbeiko.eth ☀️ (@TimBeiko) May 30, 2022

Just yesterday, a new Ropsten chain was launched on the network. The Ropsten chain will provide consensus on the network. For the merge to be successful, Ropsten’s beacon chain will need to activate the Bellatrix upgrade on the 2^nd of June. Following this, a Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) will be chosen to trigger the transition on the PoW chain.

The Ethereum team has informed miners that the exact TTD will be revealed shortly after it is chosen. Miners and developers on the network will need to be on their feet to act on any announcement.

The Ethereum Upgrade

The migration of the Ethereum chain from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake has been going on for quite some time now. The Ropsten merge will be another significant milestone in the upgrade. Prior to this merge, the Ropsten beacon chain was launched and several client implementations were tested.

Notably, though, the Ropsten transition is not the final step in achieving this historical upgrade. Following the Ropsten merge, two more testnets will be transitioned from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.

Unlike previous upgrades on the network, the Ropsten merge will require node operators to upgrade their execution layer and consensus layer. Also, the merge will occur in two phases. The first phase will occur at a slot height on the Beacon chain while the next phase will occur when the TTD value on the execution layer has been reached on the chain.

Admittedly, since the upgrade is a unique kind of upgrade, developers and miners will need more time to familiarize themselves with the features of the upgrade.

Ethereum node operators will need to run their nodes on both the Beacon chain and the execution layer. Stakers will still earn their transaction fees and ETH tokens will still be burnt during the upgrade. Finally, miners will not be needed when the migration from PoW to PoS has been completed.