Two new forks in the Ethereum ecosystem will take place this week. The goal is to test the details for “The Merge”, where the current version of the network will be merged with version 2.0. For ETH trading, you can use Bitcoin Pro.
The dates of the two forks
One of the forks is scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday 19 April, and the other for Saturday 23 April. The first will take place on the Goerli test network, while the second will take place on the main Ethereum network.
As discussed in the latest Ethereum Foundation's virtual meeting of programmers held so far, on April 15th, the purpose of these tests is to detect any leaks in the network. The goal is to eliminate anything that could compromise operations once the merger is implemented.
Both forks are of the "shadow fork" type. The first of these core network tests was carried out on Monday 11 April.
On the other hand, the Goerli fork, scheduled for tomorrow, will be the fourth to be performed on this test network. The goal is to test the stability of the proof-of-work (PoW) once the merger with the network employing the proof-of-stake (PoS) takes place.
A shadow fork makes a copy of the original network. He does this by using his knots in order to evaluate his behavior without compromising him. The life of a shadow fork is short. It exists to test for something specific and then disappears, which is why several crossroads are made.
Such tests were also performed on Kiln, a test network launched for the merger. However, the goal of the developers is to start migrating the different networks towards the merger, in order to synchronize the goals for the final arrival of Ethereum 2.0, according to the meeting.
Ethereum developers commented that client behavior (software for nodes) progressed as expected, except in the case of Besu, which showed synchronization failures with the Kiln network. As these are failures in the test network, they pose no danger to user funds on the main Ethereum network.
The race to define the arrival date of the merger
There has been a lot of speculation about the arrival of the Ethereum merger. The website of the Ethereum Foundation itself, one of the main organizations behind the development of this network, published that the merger would come by mid-2022 (which has already changed). However, it looks like it will be delayed again.
However, April 29 will be a key date to define the arrival of the Ethereum merger. This is because, in the meeting scheduled for that day, one of the objectives is to define the roadmap and will include the date of the launch of the difficulty bomb, which had already been postponed since last December, and whose update is intended to launch the merger.
The difficulty bomb is an algorithm that will significantly reduce the rewards per block mined in Ethereum with PoW, thus initiating its transition to PoS.
The forks that will be released this week are expected to define the current state of the ecosystem, so that a clear date for the merger can be set in a few days.
