Ethereum Completes Its Final Pre-Merge Update

The final upgrade that Ethereum will receive before “the Merge” is called Bellatrix and it has been completed today.

The most recent hardfork for the number two blockchain, which is known as Bellatrix, was activated at epoch 144,896 on Tuesday. This action brought the network one step closer to its eagerly anticipated Merge upgrade. The developer of Prysmatic Labs, Terence Tsao, as well as the host of The Daily Gwei, Anthony Sassano, and a number of other prominent members of the Ethereum community, took to Twitter to celebrate the update as it was being released.

The Ethereum Merge is split into two parts for your convenience. In the first phase, known as Bellatrix, an update to the network’s consensus layer, also referred to as the Beacon Chain, was implemented in order to get it ready for the Merge. Once the Total Terminal Difficulty threshold reaches 58750000000000000000000, the second phase of the upgrade, which has been given the name Paris, will begin. During this phase, Ethereum will begin producing blocks using Proof-of-Stake.

The difficulty that must be overcome in order to mine the very last Proof-of-Work block is referred to as the Total Terminal Difficulty. Due to the fact that it is influenced by the varying hashrate of the network, it is still unclear when exactly the update will be shipped. The most recent estimates, on the other hand, place it somewhere between September 13 and September 15.

The Merge has been promised for a number of years, but its implementation has been repeatedly put off due to various delays. Nevertheless, as the date of the event has drawn nearer, it has emerged as a primary narrative that has been driving market sentiment over the past few months. ETH experienced a price increase of more than 100 percent over the course of the summer, reaching a high of over $2,000 for a short period of time in the middle of August.

This came after the cryptocurrency hit 18-month lows in June, following the failure of Terra and the subsequent liquidity crisis at Three Arrows Capital. According to data provided by CoinGecko, its current price is $1,665, representing a 6.3% increase since yesterday.

In the most recent few weeks, not only ETH has benefited from the approaching Merge, but also a number of tokens related to Ethereum. Among them are the Proof-of-Work ETC coin from Ethereum Classic and the LDO coin from Lido. ETHW, a new coin that is going to serve as the native asset for a Proof-of-Work fork of the Ethereum network, is perhaps the token that is getting the most attention from Merge speculators other than ETH.

This is because ETHW is going to serve as the native asset for the fork. Following the completion of the Merge, ETH holders will be entitled to receive ETHW. Despite the fact that the majority of the Ethereum community is committed to supporting the Proof-of-Stake upgrade, cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance and FTX have confirmed their plans to make any successful fork tokens available for trading.

The Merge is expected to be finished in the early morning hours of September 14, according to the countdown clock that is hosted on Blocknative. This is just over seven days from now.

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