Preston Van Loon, Justin Drake, and Vitalik Buterin of the Ethereum Foundation have updated their estimates for the network’s “Merge” to Proof-of-Stake, indicating that it could happen in August.
The Fusion of Ethereum Could Begin in August
According to multiple Ethereum Foundation members, “the Merge” to Proof-of-Stake could happen in less than three months.
Preston Van Loon, an Ethereum core developer, told attendees at the Permission less conference on Thursday that the network’s transition to Proof-of-Stake was tentatively scheduled for August.
“As far as we know, if everything goes to plan, August—it just makes sense,” said Van Loon during a panel discussion with Ethereum researcher Justin Drake and Figment CEO Lorien Gabel. Benjamin Cohen shared a clip of the discussion on Twitter Thursday.
The Ethereum Foundation’s cryptography researcher Justin Drake and co-founder Vitalik Buterin have both given similar estimates for the Merge date.
Buterin, who recently spoke at the ETH Shanghai Summit, was more conservative in his latest estimate, stating that the Merge could take place in September or October instead.
Tim Beiko of the Ethereum Foundation stated in April that the Merge would not take place by the previous June 2022 deadline.
Van Loon, on the other hand, has stated that there is a “strong desire” within Ethereum’s development circle to complete the Merge before the network’s difficulty bomb explodes in August.
The difficulty bomb was created by Ethereum developers in 2016 as a way to ensure that network participants moved to the new Proof-of-Stake chain following the Merge. Mining blocks on the network will require progressively more computing power once the difficulty bomb is activated, until it becomes impossible.
To read our blog on “CFTC Chair classifies Bitcoin and Ethereum as commodities,” click here