Ethereum Core Developers Decide A Provisional Date For The Anticipated Merge

The tentative date for the transition of Ethereum from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, known as The Merge, will include two more upgrades, the dates for which have been set for Sept. 6 and 15.

Following the completion of the three testnets, Georni, Ropsten and Sepolia, a Consensus Layer Call was held Thursday. Core developers discussed the possible dates for the implementation of the final upgrades to the Ethereum network.

The Ethereum Merge will mark the transition to proof-of-stake and has been divided into Bellatrix and Paris upgrades. The Paris upgrade will mark the completion of the event.

The core developers have decided that the Bellatrix upgrade will happen at the 144896 epoch [the time in which a certain number of blocks are created], which is expected to happen on Sept. 6, The Block reported.

Meanwhile, the target date for the Paris upgrade is Sept. 15 — at a TTD of 58750000000000000000000. The 14 day gap between the Bellatrix and the Paris upgrades will mark the movement to a specific total terminal difficulty (TTD) that will ignite The Merge.

However, this is not yet final, and uncertainities might prevail in the near future. The dates might fluctuate due to block times and hash rate fluctuations. The developers revealed that a blog post will be released on Aug. 23 to reveal additional details regarding The Merge.

In an ideal scenario, the hashrate remains constant. But that is not the case in the real world, where the hashrate changes frequently. The core developers pointed out that although they aim to complete The Merge before the end of September, a decrease in hashrate would push it back as a manual override might be needed.

The price of Ether (ETH) surged to a two-month high after the completion of the Georli testnet and as of 10:26 p.m. The price of 1 ETH is $18.75, according to CoinMarketCap.