Key takeaways:
- Bellatrix hard fork has gone live on Beacon Chain, preparing the PoS blockchain for the Merge
- Bellatrix was the last upgrade before Ethereum transitions from being a Proof-of-Work to being a Proof-of-Stake network later this month
- Vitalik Buterin revealed that the Merge is expected to take place “around” September 13–15
The last upgrade before the Merge was successfully deployed
Earlier today, the last hurdle before the Ethereum Merge slated for later this month was overcome with the activation of the Bellatrix hard fork on the Beacon Chain.
Beacon Chain is a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain launched in late 2020 that is slated to merge with the Ethereum mainnet in mid-September and facilitate Ethereum’s transition from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a PoS consensus mechanism.
The goal of the Bellatrix hard fork is to enable ETH validators to start producing updated Beacon Chain blocks, which will allow for the codebase merge of PoW and PoS layers.
Ethereum co-founder and lead developer Vitalik Buterin shared the news about the Bellatrix upgrade on Twitter.
According to Buterin, the Merge is “expected” to take place between September 13–15, once the terminal total difficulty (TTD) reaches 58750000000000000000000.
Ethereum’s transition to PoS, arguably the most important blockchain update in the history of crypto, will change the way Ethereum transactions are processed and eliminate the demand for ETH miners to reach a consensus about the state of the blockchain.
The price of ETH increased by +4.7% in the last 24 hours, reaching its two-week high of $1,678. The world’s second-largest crypto in terms of market capitalization could see a substantial rally following the Merge, according to our automatic ETH price predictions.
