Ethereum’s Public Testnet Set to Transition to Proof-of-Stake in June

Key takeaways:

• Ethereum’s main public testnet, Ropsten, is slated to transition to Proof-of-Stake next month
• Ropsten’s transition from PoW to PoS is the final stage before the Ethereum PoW main chain merges with the new PoS one
• Ethereum could become a PoS network as early as August

Ropsten Testnet Merge transition slated for June 8th

Ropsten, the main public testnet of the Ethereum network, will transition from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism in June, according to Terence Tsao, a software engineer developing Prysm’s production client for Ethereum 2.0. Tsao outlined June 8 as a potential merge transition date in a tweet on Wednesday.

Ropsten’s planned “Merge” is one of the most important milestones in Ethereum’s transition to energy efficient PoS model. As a reminder, “the merge” is a highly anticipated event that will see Ethereum’s existing PoW chain merge with the new PoS blockchain. 

Last month, as a part of the much-anticipated consensus mechanism transition, Ethereum developers stress-tested the platform’s PoS capabilities using shadow forks to identify potential bugs and other problems in the code. Shortly after the testing phase, Ethereum developer Tim Beiko announced that “the merge” will be postponed and take place a “few months after” June.

Speaking to The Block, co-founder of the Ethereum research tool EthHub Anthony Sassano revealed that the public testnet transition is the final step before the mainnnet transition. Although no official rollout timeline has been published, Sassano said the estimates that the merge on mainnnet could be taking place in August.