Ethereum Completes Its Final Test Before a Major Crypto Event.

Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, had a final dress rehearsal before a years-awaited upgrade.

Ethereum has been mined using a proof-of-work approach since its introduction in 2010. It needs difficult math formulae and a lot of energy.

Ethereum is transitioning to proof of stake for network security. The new method uses users’ existing ether cache to verify transactions and generate tokens, rather than energy-intensive mining. It consumes less electricity and should speed transactions.
Wednesday 9:45 p.m. ET was the final test.

Ansgar Dietrichs, an Ethereum Foundation researcher, said the most meaningful statistic for success is time to finalization. “Another good exam,” he said.
Galaxy Digital’s research associate noted that after the test merging, participation reduced and there may have been a client issue, but generally, it functioned.

Christine Kim tweeted, “A successful Merge = chain finalizes.” We may see similar troubles with the mainnet upgrade, but “the Merge worked.”
Thursday’s developer meeting will address the upgrade’s timing. The merger was expected to begin in mid-September.

For years, Ethereum’s transformation has been delayed. Core developers say the merge has been gradual to allow for study, development, and implementation.

Ether, the Ethereum blockchain asset, has gained about 80% in the last month, including 10% in the last 24 hours, to $1,875. It’s down half this year.

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One of Ethereum’s testnets, Goerli (named for a Berlin train station), mirrored the mainnet’s September process.

Testnets let developers try new things and make modifications before main blockchain updates. Wednesday’s exercise revealed that proof-of-stake reduces the energy needed to verify a block of transactions and that the merger process works.
Josef Je, a former Ethereum Foundation developer who now manages PWN, stated Goerli has a bottom-up testnet.

Je said it’s the most popular testnet, and proof of stake on Goerli will be almost equivalent to mainnet.

Goerli is “the closest to mainnet, which can be beneficial for testing smart contract interactions,” according to the Ethereum Foundation’s blog.
Tim Beiko, Ethereum’s protocol coordinator, claimed they knew “within minutes” if a test was successful. In the hours and days ahead, they’ll still seek for setup flaws to fix.

“We want the network to finalize and have a high participation percentage among validators,” added Beiko.

Participation rate is the easiest indicator to track, Beiko noted. Developers must discover out why if numbers drop.
Transactions are another matter. Ethereum blocks transactions. Beiko said blocks with transactions indicate the test went properly.

Last, make sure more than two-thirds of validators are online and agree on the chain history. Normal network circumstances take 15 minutes, says Beiko.

If those three things seem excellent, there’s more to check, but things are moving nicely, said Beiko.

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The Ethereum community has been testing proof-of-stake on a chain called beacon since December 2020. Beacon solved critical issues.

Beiko said the original idea needed validators to hold 1,500 ether, worth $2.7 million. The new proof-of-stake proposal requires only 32 ether, or $57,600.
“It’s not trivial, but it’s more accessible,” Beiko added.

Other events have shaped Wednesday’s test. Ethereum’s longest-running testnet, Ropsten, united its proof-of-work and proof-of-stake chains in June. It was the first big dry run for the mainnet’s planned process next month.

Beiko said testing the merge ensured that Ethereum’s software was reliable and that everything built on top of the network was ready for the changeover.