Ethereum is the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, rivaling Bitcoin.
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ethereumIt is the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Since its creation almost ten years ago, Ethereum has been mined through the so-called proof-of-work model. It involves complex mathematical equations that a huge number of machines are vying to solve. and that Requires a lot of energy. Bitcoin Mining follows a similar process.
Ethereum is working on moving to a new model for securing the network called Proof of Stake. Rather than relying on energy-intensive mining, the new method requires users to leverage their existing Ether caches as a vehicle for transaction validation and token creation. It is expected to consume much less power and translate into faster transactions.
The final test took place on Wednesday around 9:45pm.
Ethereum Foundation researcher Ansgar Dietrichs said: said in a tweet When it comes to dry runs like this, the most important measure of success is time to final decision. He called it “another successful test.”
A research associate at Galaxy Digital pointed out that the participation rate dropped after the test merge and that one of the clients may have had issues, but overall it went well.
“successful merge = finalize chain” Christine Kim wrote in a tweetadded that a similar type of problem would likely occur with a mainnet upgrade, but “the important thing is that the merge worked”.
the timing of The upgrade will be discussed at the Ethereum Core Developers’ Meeting on Thursday.Previous guidance was that the integration was It should go into effect in mid-September.
Over the past few years, Ethereum’s migration has been repeatedly postponed. Core developers have slowed progress on merging to allow enough time for research, development, and implementation, he told CNBC.
the price of etherthe native token of the Ethereum blockchain, but is still down by about half this year.
this is what happened
One of Ethereum’s test networks or testnets called Goerli (named after a train station in Berlin) simulated the same process that the main network or mainnet would perform in September.
Testnets allow developers to try new things and make necessary adjustments before updates are rolled out across the main blockchain. Wednesday night’s exercise also proved that the proof-of-stake validation process significantly reduces the energy required to validate a transaction block, and that the merger process works.
Goerli has the bottom-up testnet badge. Josef Je, developer working with the Ethereum Foundation and now running a permissionless peer-to-peer lending platform called PWN, said:
Je added that this is the most used testnet at the moment and Goerli’s Proof of Stake is almost identical to how it runs on the mainnet.
of Ethereum Foundation’s blog reacts Goerli says it is closest to mainnet and could be useful for testing smart contract interactions.
finding bugs
Ethereum’s protocol developer coordinator Tim Beiko told CNBC that it’s usually “within minutes” if tests were successful. attention to potential configuration issues so that they can be fixed quickly.
We want the network to be complete and have a high participation rate among validators. .
The easiest metric to track is participation rate. This means how many validators are performing their duties online, he said. If the numbers go down, the developer needs to find out why.
Another important issue relates to transactions. Ethereum processes transactions in groups called blocks. Veiko said whether a block had real transactions and wasn’t empty would be one of the clear indicators that the test went well.
The last major check is whether the network is finalizing. That means more than two-thirds of his validators are online and agree on the same view of chain history. Beiko says it takes him 15 minutes under normal network conditions.
If those three things look good, we have a long list of secondary factors to check, but at that point we are doing well, says Beiko.
“more accessible”
Since December 2020, the Ethereum community has been testing proof-of-stake workflows on chains called beacons that run parallel to existing proof-of-work chains. Beacon solved some important problems.
According to Veiko, the initial proposal required validators to hold 1,500 ether to use the system, which now requires about $2.7 million worth of stock. The new Proof of Stake proposal lowers the bar, requiring only 32 Ether, or about $57,600, for interested users.
It’s still not a trivial amount of money, but it’s a much more accessible system, said Beiko.
Leading up to Wednesday’s test, there were other important developments. In June, Ethereums longest-running testnet, known as Ropsten, successfully integrated its Proof of Work execution layer with its Proof of Stake beacon chain. This is the first major dry run for the process mainnet will be doing next month and everything should go according to plan.
According to Beiko, testing the merge will allow developers to ensure that the software running the Ethereum protocol is stable and that “everything built on the network is ready for migration.” … apparently …