Ropsten, Ethereum’s main public testnet, is planned to go through “the merge” next month as part of the last preparations before the main Ethereum blockchain may move to proof-of-stake consensus.
Parithosh Jayanthi, a devops engineer at the Ethereum Foundation, merged the pull request on GitHub today, indicating that this code is ready for implementation.
The merge marks Ethereum’s long-awaited transition to a proof-of-stake blockchain, with the existing proof-of-work chain merging with the new proof-of-stake chain. It’s a significant shift, and there have been several tests to determine whether it will work. One of these final tests is the decision to do so on Ethereum’s main public testnet.
When it comes to testing, this transition occurs in two stages. After creating a genesis version of the consensus layer, the network — in this case, the Ropsten testnet — goes through the merge. The first portion will take place on May 30, with the merging scheduled for June 8.
On Twitter, Preston Van Loon, an Ethereum core developer at Prysmatic Labs, said, “Merging Ropsten is a big testing milestone towards Ethereum’s mainnet merge later this year.”
According to Anthony Sassano, co-founder of the Ethereum research tool EthHub, the public testnet undergoing the merge transition is the last step before it occurs on the main Ethereum blockchain. “I anticipate three public testnets will be conducted during the transition, and if everything goes well, the mainnet will be scheduled soon after,” he said.
Sassano estimated that the mainnet merging may occur as early as August, but emphasised that this is his best opinion and no official date has been provided.
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