Ethereum’s Goerli testnet merge was successfully executed on Wednesday evening. It marks the third and final trial run before the mainnet merge with Ethereum’s proof-of-stake Beacon Chain, which is expected to take place in September.
Goerli (named after a train station in Berlin) is one of the largest and most active Ethereum testnets, and the last to transition to proof-of-stake (PoS). The merge occurred last night when Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) hit 10,790,000. TTD is the mining difficulty required to mine the final block in Ethereum. Once this difficulty level is reached, the next block would be verified and added using the PoS consensus mechanism.
Developers and enthusiasts watching the merge live on Zoom pointed to the pandas on the screen as an indicator that the merge had worked. Ethereum core developer Ansgar Dietrichs also took to Twitter, saying that, barring “some hiccups,” the merge was “another successful test.”
Before Goerli, the Ropsten and Sepolia testnet merges also went live in June and July this year and were largely successful. They simulate the process that the Ethereum main network (mainnet) will execute in September when it merges with the Beacon Chain, which is currently running the PoS consensus mechanism. These testnet merges allow developers to troubleshoot bugs before the update rolls out across the main blockchain.
The success of all three testnet merges signals an all-clear for Ethereum’s transition to PoS, which is perhaps the most anticipated upgrade in the history of blockchain and cryptocurrency. If implemented successfully, the merge will have several critical long-term implications for Ethereum.
For instance, the move to PoS is predicted to reduce Ethereum’s energy usage by as much as 99 percent. The PoS consensus mechanism will also allow for sharding, a scalability solution that will break blockchain data into smaller, faster, more easily managed parts. This will help speed up Ethereum’s throughput and reduce transaction costs as well.
The success of Goerli and the subsequent merge of the Beacon Chain also spells good news for early Ethereum stakers. It indicates that the Shanghai upgrade is fast approaching (6 to 12 months away), post which users would be able to unlock staked ETH and withdraw staking rewards accrued on the Beacon Chain.
All these factors make the Goerli testnet merge a big deal. Therefore, following the merge, ETH was up over 13% over the last 24 hours, trading at $1,900.73 at the time of writing (~40 percent below its all-time high). However, in a Bankless interview, Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin said that the merge is still “not priced in” and that upgrades will only affect valuations “after it
(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)
