Bellatrix is the final Ethereum upgrade before “the Merge.”
Live Ethereum Bellatrix
Bellatrix activated! ????
Next stop: the merge
See you on the other side???? pic.twitter.com/01FCSDyqs5— terence.eth (@terencechain) September 6, 2022
The second blockchain’s latest hardfork, dubbed Bellatrix, went live Tuesday at epoch 144,896, bringing the network one step closer to the long-awaited Merge upgrade.
Terence Tsao of Prysmatic Labs, Anthony Sassano of The Daily Gwei, and several other prominent Ethereum community members took to Twitter to celebrate the update’s release.
The Ethereum Merge is divided into two parts. The first instalment, Bellatrix, saw the network’s consensus layer, also known as the Beacon Chain, updated in preparation for the Merge.
The second phase, dubbed Paris, will see Ethereum begin producing Proof-of-Stake blocks once the Total Terminal Difficulty threshold reaches 58750000000000000000000.
The Total Terminal Difficulty is the difficulty of mining the final Proof-of-Work block.
It’s unclear when the update will be released because it’s affected by the network’s fluctuating hashrate. However, current estimates place it between September 13 and September 15.
The Merge has been promised for several years but has been repeatedly postponed. However, as the event has approached, it has emerged as a key narrative driving market sentiment in recent months.
After hitting 18-month lows in June as a result of Terra’s collapse and the ensuing Three Arrows Capital liquidity crisis, ETH surged more than 100% over the summer, briefly exceeding $2,000 in mid-August. According to CoinGecko, it is currently trading at $1,665, up 6.3% today.
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