“The Merge,” a crucial transition upgrade of Ethereum 2.0, is live in closed devnet
Ethereum developer and researcher Ben Edgington of ConsenSys development studio reveals that the first-ever smart contracts platform has accomplished a crucial milestone.
PoS Ethereum is one step closer now
According to the latest tweet by Mr. Edgington, who is a product owner of Ethereum 2.0 Teku client implementation, “Merge” upgrade is live in devnet.
Ethereum 2.0 merge Interop devnet confirmed. Let’s go! 🚀 pic.twitter.com/8vrpmOHYIl
— Ben Edgington ⟠ benjaminion.eth (@benjaminion_xyz) October 8, 2021
Its devnet is interoperable as it interacts with different implementations of Ethereum 2.0. As such, ETH2 enthusiasts can now experiment with instruments of transition to Ethereum 2.0.
Mr. Edgington shared the photos of Ethereum 2.0 devnet’s “Hello World” moment. It displays Ethereum devs celebrating the activation of “Merge,” including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
The location of the event is kept secret. Rotki founder Lefteris Karapetsas noticed the Greek labels on the bottles, so Mr. Edgington confirmed that it is “somewhere in Greece.”
What is “The Merge?”
“The Merge” is an upgrade that replaces the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus behind Ethereum blockchain with a proof-of-stake (PoS) one. With “The Merge,” Ethereum 2.0 becomes “fully” activated, and the road to sharding is opened.
This event of paramount importance will take place around Q1/Q2 of 2022.
As covered by U.Today previously, Ethereum Foundation developers recently confirmed the date of the first-ever ETH2 upgrade, named Altair.
Altair will go live on Oct. 27, 2021, at epoch 74240 of the Beacon Chain. It will reconsider the economic logics of Ethereum 2.0 and activate “light client” functionality.
