The successful test ensures that the merge will continue to be available for September 19.
Ethereum took another, smaller but crucial, step towards the merge. This is the much-hyped and often-punted transition from proof-of-stake.
The 10th shadow fork of Ethereum was scheduled for today. However, it went live yesterday morning, 26 hours earlier than expected. Shadow forks allow you to test out certain aspects of the merge. They also practice making a few changes to the blockchain in the future.
This is different than full testnet hardforks like the Sepolia testnet earlier in this month. Testnets are full rehearsals for the merge. They move the entire Ethereum mainnet to a test network.
Shadow fork practiced releases this week that will take place during Ethereum’s final testnet Goerli scheduled for August 11. This will be the final such test before the merge can be executed.
Over the past two years, the timeline for the merger has changed numerous times. However, Ethereum core developers declared their intention for the merge to be deployed on September 19. Developers are optimistic that the schedule will hold, as only one major event, Goerli, is still before them.
The merger will see Ethereum, second-largest cryptocurrency in market capitalization behind Bitcoin and the network responsible HTML44% of all decentralized finance activity, move from a proof of work model, to proof of stake.
Currently, new Ethereum is created by an energy-intensive process. So-called “miners”, who use huge amounts of computing power in solving complex puzzles in order to receive blocks of new ETH, direct enormous amounts of computing power at creating new Ethereum.
Merge will replace the practice of ETH-mining and allow holders of 32 or more ETH to pledge their existing ETH for creation. The Ethereum Foundation claims that the proof-of stake model will make Ethereum 99% less environmentally friendly.
No significant issues have been reported since shadow fork 10 was deployed yesterday. The Ethereum core developers will continue to deploy Shadow Forks until the merge.
