Ethereum finalizes start date for Bellatrix upgrade
The “Bellatrix” upgrade ahead of the Ethereum merger will activate on Sept. 6, followed by the Ethereum mainnet merge between Sept.10-20, according to a blog published on Thursday by the Ethereum Foundation.
See related article:
Fast facts
“The Merge” intends to shift the Ethereum blockchain from its current proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism to a proof-of-stake (PoS) model, a faster, more energy efficient, more secure way to scale projects. Ethereum has completed a series of work to convert the testnet to PoS, and will eventually move the mainnet to PoS.
The blog said the Ethereum mainnet merge will happen in two steps, the “Bellatrix” and “Paris” upgrades. The Bellatrix upgrade brings Ethereum’s consensus layer – the Beacon Chain that introduces the PoS mechanism to Ethereum – into a state ready to merge.
The Bellatrix upgrade will occur at epoch 144896, which means a real-world time of 11:34:47 UTC on Sept. 6. Epoch is the time unit that is used on Ethereum.
The Paris upgrade will come after the Bellatrix upgrade, which will switch the Ethereum network from PoW to PoS.
The Paris upgrade will be triggered when the “Total Terminal Difficulty” (TTD) reaches 58,750,000,000,000,000,000,000. TTD is a threshold difficulty of the final block mined in Ethereum before the merge; after TTD is achieved or exceeded, the next block will be produced by PoS.
TTD achievement is expected between Sept.10-20. The first mainnet block produced under the PoS mechanism will occur approximately 13 minutes after the Paris upgrade.
See related article: Chandler Guo tells why he is the man who would hard fork Ethereum