According to data from Ethernodes, as many as 73.5% of Ethereum nodes are marked as “Merge ready”, right before the Bellatrix upgrade which takes place today.
To become Merge ready, the Ethereum node operators must comply with the Bellatrix upgrade by updating its consensus layer clients prior to epoch 144896 on the Beacon Chain. According to the Ethereum Foundation, this is scheduled to take place on 11:34:47 am UTC on Sept. 6, 2022.
For the remaining nodes that aren’t ready, Tim Beiko, the core developer of Ethereum took to Twitter to remind remaining node operators to update their clients.
For the node operators that don’t make the update before the Bellatrix upgrade, the Ethereum Foundation said, “[Node operators] will be stuck on an incompatible chain following old rules and will be unable to send Ether or operate on the post-Merge Ethereum network.”
Read Also: All about the Ethereum Merge
Most of the “Not-Ready” nodes are on the Geth client, who have yet to upgrade to Geth v1.10.23 or higher, according to Ethernodes.
Erigon, Besu and Nethermind are the other Ethereum clients with node operators that require updating.
After the Bellatrix upgrade, the Paris event will be triggered when the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) reaches 58750000000000000000000, estimated to occur around September 15.
Furthermore, according to the Ethereum Foundation Ethereum users do not need to do anything with their Ether (ETH) and Ethereum-based assets during the Merge
