Ethereum comes ever closer to PoS after Merge Upgrade Goes Live on Ropsten Testnet

By: Micheal Wilson

June 10, 2022 8:01 AM

Ethereum's longest-running testnet called Ropsten is transitioning to a proof-of-stake algorithm on Wednesday in a historic move for the Ether community.

Ethereum’s Merge, the blockchain’s much-anticipated transition from its current proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus algorithm comes closer today if the proposed trial upgrade on the Ropsten public testnet goes as planned.

Ropsten is Ethereum’s oldest testnet which was first rolled out in 2016 that allows for blockchain development testing before deployment on the mainnet. Just as other testnets, it is similar to the mainnet, with the key difference that no “real” funds are at risk if there happen to be any technical glitch.

On May 18, the date for the upgrade was first announced after Ethereum core developer Terence Tsao broke the news that configuration for Ropsten’s Beacon Chain, a PoS network that runs alongside Ethereum's mainnet had been merged and clients version should be expected soon.

However, with things beginning to move at a fast pace on the Ethereum development side. Tim Beiko, an Ethereum developer announced the launch of a new beacon chain on May 30, alongside the Bellatrix upgrade which is among the two conditions required for the Ropsten testnet Merge.

The following day saw the developers making a decision on the "Terminal Total Difficulty" which is a pre-decided value for the Ropsten Merge to occur, placing the value at 50 quadrillion.

Beiko, explained that such a high value was picked “because of the low PoW hash rate on testnets, and the risk of The Merge having happened before the network would be ready with the Bellatrix update.”

According to the Ethereum Foundation’s blog post, client software teams participating in the Ropsten Merge include Lighthouse, Lodestar,Nimbus and a host of others.

What’s does this mean for ETH 2.0?

Wednesday's Ropsten Merge is a giant step before Ethereum’s actual transition to the Consensus Layer also known as ETH 2.0 scheduled to happen in August this year.

A huge development leap after some years though, after multiple delays made a large chunk of the Ethereum community lose faith in ETH 2.0 vision.

Preston van Loon wrote “Merging Ropsten is a huge testing milestone towards Ethereum's mainnet Merge slated for later this year.”

The new proposed PoS model which happens to be the biggest upgrade in the history of Ethereum is projected to solve some of Ethereum’s biggest issues, such as scalability and high network fees.