Long announced and repeatedly postponed: Ethereum’s switch from mining to the Proof of Stake consensus process. The start date is now set.
Ethereum’s highly anticipated move to Proof of Stake consensus now has an official launch date. The two-stage protocol change is scheduled to begin on September 6 of this year. The first step is the activation of the update called Bellatrix on the beacon chain, which is already working with Proof of Stake, as the Ethereum Foundation announced. All test networks had already been successfully converted beforehand.
The update is expected on September 6 around 1:30 p.m. Central European Summer Time; the decisive factor is reaching the epoch 144896. An epoch is a basic concept of the Ethereum staking process. It comprises 32 consecutive time slots of 12 seconds each, with a randomly selected validator proposing a new block in each slot. If the network is running optimally, such an epoch lasts 6.4 minutes.
Paris update with minimum difficulty
The Bellatrix update is followed by the second step of the Paris update for the network layer still running on Proof of Work. Reaching a set difficulty value in mining is the decisive trigger here. The “Difficulty” indicates how many hash values ​​a miner has to produce on average until he finds a valid one for block production.
As soon as the “Terminal Total Difficulty” value of 58,750,000,000,000,000,000,000 (58.75 trillion) is reached, it is said to have finally excavated. If the update works, the next block will then be generated using the PoS method. After the completion of two epochs, i.e. about 13 minutes, this block is considered final and the transition is thus completed.
Exactly when the target difficulty block is generated depends on the power that gathers to mine. Ethereum developers estimate that it could happen between September 10th and 20th. Time estimation tools can be found here and here. If the difficulty is reached prematurely or if the necessary hash rate is lost, the target can also be adjusted on the client side.
Validators instead of miners
Ethereum’s transition is usually referred to as a merge, because it is about merging the execution layer still working with Proof of Work with the Beacon Chain using Proof of Stake in the existing mainnet. The Beacon Chain has been operational since the end of 2020. It introduces a consensus layer in which blocks are then no longer confirmed by finding matching hashes, which is computationally and power-intensive.
Instead, there is now the role of the validator. To become a validator, one must deposit a minimum amount of ether and run a full node (currently 32 ether); Alternatively, you can also participate in a validator pool with a lower minimum deposit without a full node.
Staking deposits frozen for now
If validators confirm blocks truthfully, they receive coins – called staking – as a reward. If malicious validators send false results to the network that other participants cannot confirm, the deposited ether share is reduced. According to current data, over 13.3 million ethers have already been deposited for staking. The energy required to confirm new blocks in the blockchain should then suddenly fall by 99.95 percent.
If you would like to stake, you should note that the required deposit in Ethereum is frozen until further notice. Only after the successful merger should there be further updates, which will then enable the stakers to dispose of their deposit again.
Neither faster nor cheaper
According to the Ethereum developers, end users who hold Ether balances on their own wallets or on an exchange do not have to take any special steps for the update for the time being. However, any instructions from wallet services or exchanges that appear should be checked for authenticity, as attempts at fraud are to be expected. Node operators, on the other hand, are called upon to switch to the latest versions of their client software; the success of the update ultimately depends on their acceptance in the decentralized Ethereum network. Geth users of the last version v1.10.22 should also urgently upgrade to v1.10.23 because of a bug in the software. Download links and other information can be found in the official notification.
Incidentally, the switch to Ethereum will neither make it faster in transaction processing nor cheaper in terms of the execution fees mentioned. High network utilization with many transactions had previously pushed up the costs again and again. Especially as a result of the NFT hype, which has since faded, it sometimes happened that the fees were higher than the value of the actual transactions. The next step on the roadmap is intended to help with scaling: “Sharding”. For this purpose, Ethereum is to be divided into 64 smaller blockchains
08/25/2022
07:13
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Added information for node operators and Geth in the text.
(axk)