The founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, along with a few of the key developers said that the Merge will be completed by August.
Vitalik Buterin spoke on the expected release during his visit to the ETH Shanghai Summit. Anyhow he also gave more room for any hiccups, by telling The Merge could be in September or October.
He also shared an overview of the Ethereum protocol, the ETH Merge, and benefits of the transition to PoS such as an improved Ethereum ecosystem and more applications.
The Merge is one of the most awaited events in Ethereum’s 7 year history and could come in the next few months, as per the project’s co-founder and a couple of core ETH developers. This may happen prior to the “difficulty bomb” slowing down the network.
The difficulty bomb is a deliberate process immersed into Ethereum’s code that will slow down the network over time. The devs team has embedded it for two chief reasons:
- to encourage developers to push the proof of stake transition and,
- make it harder for miners to remain on the proof of work chain following the event.
The difficulty bomb has been delayed a couple of times in the past to ensure that the network continues to function properly. However, the team wants to steer clear of another delay this time and finish the Merge before the blockchain slows down.
Previously, Tim Beiko, one of the key developers said that the Merge will not occur in June as expected, but it will most probably happen a few months later.
An ETH researcher, Justin Drake also made a similar prediction, by saying that he had a “strong desire to make this happen before difficulty bomb in August”.
