The Ethereum community has been on a long trip, and the merge concludes that journey. As the hype around the merge continues to build, Tim Beiko, developer at Ethereum Foundation, has warned that fans would have to endure for a few more months before seeing the results.
The Ethereum Merger No Longer In June
For those inexperienced with the Ethereum platform, the merge marks the long-awaited move away from PoW to the PoS mechanism. The merge will lower the network’s environmental impact while making transactions more timely and more economical for consumers, among other things. This is because, in the next stage of the crypto’s evolution, the second-largest blockchain’s security will depend on staked tokens instead of the allegedly power-consuming mining equipment.
This merging of the mainnet with the Beacon Chain PoS system was initially slated to happen in the first quarter of 2022. However, according to Tim Beiko, the event has been delayed until the third quarter of 2022. In a tweet on Tuesday, the Ethereum leading developer said that “it is no longer June, but it will be within the next several months.”
He remarked that the existing Proof of Work for Ethereum, which is computationally costly, has reached its “last chapter.” He cautioned against increased funding for mining equipment because ETH mining will become obsolete soon. Long-time Ether supporters will not be startled by Beiko’s announcement that the merge has been shifted due to unforeseen circumstances.
Since 2016, there have been discussions on a multi-stage shift PoS. While this was going on, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin made the infamous remark that the change would occur “very soon.” While ETH core developers have not specified a particular launch date for the merge, all previously expected release dates have been continually postponed due to the enormous size and complexity of the update to the blockchain.
Some Miners Of Ethereum Are Unprepared For The Move To PoS
After implementing Ethereum’s first mainnet dubbed “shadow fork” on the 11th of April, Beiko released an update on the 12th of April. To properly verify their assumptions about the network’s complicated move to PoS, engineers used the testnet to establish a more controlled environment.
Although many believe that engineers can transition the crypto’s mainnet from PoW to PoS architecture by the second half of 2022, some are skeptical. A representative for Flexpool, the world’s sixth-largest Ethereum mining pool, said they do not expect the merge to take place until 2023.
Flexpool has also indicated that it aims to “actively commit developers to the merging testnets after they go public.” Its developers will also look out for flaws to prevent the merge from being further delayed. The company has made significant investments in the ETH mining industry. Therefore, it is understandable that they want ETH to keep operating under the proof-of-work architecture for a long time.
