Ethereum's Final Testnet Merge Live On Goerli, Mainnet Merge Next Month

The third and final Ethereum testnet is now live on the Goerli testnet and the highly anticipated event of the network moving from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake might happen as early as next month.

Ethereum test environment network (testnet) is now live on Georli, the last of the three public testnets that were the part of the "dress rehearsal" of the actual Merge. It took place at around 9:45 p.m. ET Wednesday, according to CNBC.

The blockchain network completed the Ropsten testnet in June and Sepolia in July.

Since its creation, led by Vitalik Buterin and others, the Ethereum network has operated using a proof-of-work model, which requires solving complex problems to mine more Ether (ETH). This is what Bitcoin (BTC), the first cryptocurrency, follows as well.

The transition to proof-of-stake will allow the Ethereum network to allow staking of Ether tokens to process the transactions instead of solving complex problems, which guzzle electric power.

Ansgar Dietrichs, a researcher with the Ethereum Foundation, called the Goerli testnet "another successfull test," adding that the most relevant testnet merge success metric is "time-to-finalization."

"A successful Merge = chain finalizes. Sure, participation rate dropped and looks like there may have been an issue with one of the clients but the Merge worked. We'll likely see minor issues like this with the upgrade on mainnet too but the point is, the Merge worked," Christine Kim, a research associate at investment firm Galaxy Digital, commented.

Twitter user @FrankieOneye pointed out that the if the Consensus Call set for Thursday to decided a potential date for the Ethereum mainnet merge actually sets a date, the Goerli testnet is a success or else, there might be some issues that can cause delays.

Ethereum developer Marius van der Wijden celebrated the successful testnet and stated that "there was some confusion on the network because of two different terminal blocks and lots of non-updated nodes, so we didn't finalize earlier."

"We're still looking into what's happening, but so far it looks quite good," Wijden added.