Ethereum ready for Proof of Stake

The gap is getting shorter: Ethereum has successfully completed the last shadow fork before the merge. The fork was the final endurance test before the consensus switch – the countdown for the merge to Proof of Stake and Ethereum 2.0 is on.

Mastered last dress rehearsal

The 13th and last shadow fork before the merge went live on Friday – without any complications. “The transition to Mainnet Shadowfork-13 was successful for all Nethermind nodes!” announced Nethermind’s Ethereum developers known on Twitter.

Shadow forks simulate the conversion of the Ethereum mainchain from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake and serve as a stress test for certain aspects of the merge. Shadow forks can be used to play through the effects of network upgrades, identify possible errors and make adjustments. The latest shadow fork comes at the end of years of preparation for the most important upgrade in Ethereum history.

Countdown to merge

Ethereum has thus cleared the last hurdle on the way to the merge, which according to the current status falls on Thursday, September 15th. Even on Google is already counted down. No wonder: The requests for the Ethereum merge on the search engine have skyrocketed since August.

A new Ethereum age is dawning

The merge marks the most significant upgrade for Ethereum to date. Mining ends with the change to Proof of Stake, the blockchain is secured by validators and thus reduces its energy requirements by over 99 percent. More about this here.

In addition, the merger also throttles the ether inflation rate: the distribution of new ether is reduced by around 90 percent. You can find out here how this could affect the price of the cryptocurrency.

For miners, however, the switch means a loss of revenue. You can read here which strategies are used to cushion them and what effects the merger could have on other crypto networks.