The Ropsten testnet, which is based on the network of Ethereum, is prepared to initiate the Merge’s “first dress rehearsal” stage to adopt the PoS (Proof-of-Stake) consensus mechanism. Tim Beiko, the chief developer at Ethereum, declared on 31st May that an exclusive Beacon Chain for Ropsten’s assistance has been introduced. It will play the role of a predecessor for the ultimate test Merge that would expectedly take place around 8th June.
Tim Beiko turned to his official account on Twitter today to announce this latest development. He noted that the PoW testnet of Ethereum will now be transitioned to Proof-of-Stake. The Ropsten testnet is counted among several testing grounds for the consumers of Ethereum. It imitates the features of the Ethereum network’s mainnet as well as the coding environment, however, no impact would be put by the respective changes on the mainnet.
Background Information
Ropsten is additionally known as the longest-lived PoW (Proof-of-Work) testnet, that was introduced in 2016, within the Ethereum network. Another Twitter user – who goes by the name “terence.eth” – also posted that the move effectively took place and some of the validators are, at the moment, offline because of testing. When the final step of Ropsten’s own experience of Merge is taken, it will provide an initial appearance of the Ethereum mainnet Merge.
The consequent impact on the consumers, the testnet, as well as its applications will provide the preliminary indications of what is to be expected to occur for Merge on the mainnet, and what would be possible solutions to the emerging issues. According to Beiko, some radical things are still present that require the node runners as well as the developers to readily take care of them before the time of Ropsten Merge’s launch.
Sine Qua Non
There is another requirement dealing with the inevitable launch of an exclusive upgrade by the Beacon Chain. Simultaneous to this, the TTD (or mining difficulty in other words) of the proof-of-work additionally needs to be necessarily determined by the developers. The very upgrade will be witnessed initially and TTD (which needs to be selected by the 2nd or 3rd of June) will come after it, as pointed out by Beiko.
The event of Merge is considered to be one of the most prominent and highly anticipated occasions throughout the history of the network of Ethereum as a lot of objectives will be accomplished in this way. A significant among those targets is that it will transform the proof-of-work consensus algorithm to proof-of-stake. Besides this, the Merge will make some modifications to the network to turn it additionally energy-effective.
What’s more, there will occur a change in the network’s title to be called the Consensus Layer (which was formerly named Eth 2.0). As per the expectations made up till now, August is known to be the month for the launch but not confirmed yet. Notwithstanding the anticipations of numerous consumers of Ethereum cryptocurrency, no reduction would be caused by the Merge into the gas charges needed to operate on the network.
