Research & Development

The Merge is happening soon! This post explains how and when the upgrade will happen, along with the client versions compatible with it. Kiln, an Ethereum merge testnet launched in early 2022, will be shut down during the week of September 12, 2022. Ropsten and Rinkeby are also deprecated and scheduled to be sunset in Q4 2022 and Q3 2023 respectively. Users and developers should migrate to Goerli & Sepolia, which will keep being maintained and upgraded to reflect changes to the Ethereum mainnet for the forseable future. As previously announced, the Kiln, Ropsten and Rinkeby testnets are now deprecated and will be shut down over the coming months. **Kiln, which was launched for the purposes of testing post-merge Ethereum prior to existing testnets merging, will

Do you enjoy solving interesting and challenging problems? Are you interested in getting involved at the most foundational level of the Ethereum protocol? The Protocol Support Team (EF) is excited to announce that applications are now being accepted for the third cohort of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (formerly Core Developer Apprenticeship Program (CDAP))! With the Merge closing in (58750000000000000000000 🥳), Ethereum core developers are looking forward to the next steps in the protocol’s development and there is a need for qualified and committed people to help create an increasingly powerful and robust Ethereum network. Enter the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship.

~20 days until the Merge 🚀 tl;dr The Merge Data Challenge is live! Collect, analyze, and visualize all of the data Merge Mainnet client releases are out. Did you upgrade yet?

Ethereum is moving to proof-of-stake! The transition, known as The Merge, must first be activated on the Beacon Chain with the Bellatrix upgrade. After this, the proof-of-work chain will migrate to proof-of-stake upon hitting a specific Total Difficulty value. The Bellatrix upgrade is scheduled for epoch 144896 on the Beacon Chain -- 11:34:47am UTC on Sept 6, 2022. The Terminal Total Difficulty value triggering The Merge is 58750000000000000000000, expected between Sept 10-20, 2022. Note: as announced earlier, the Kiln testnet is being sunset. Operators will shut down on September 6, 2022.

tl;dr Merge sequence engaged 🚀

The Sepolia testnet will undergo a post-merge execution layer (EL) upgrade at block 1735371, expected on August 17, 2022 The upgrade will cause EL clients on the network to disconnect from peers which have not transitioned to proof-of-stake. It does not add additional functionality beyond this. Sepolia node operators must upgrade their execution layer client prior to block 1735371. A similar upgrade is expected on Goerli and the Ethereum mainnet once these networks have transitioned to proof-of-stake

For the last testnet proof-of-stake transition, Goerli will merge with Prater. The combined Goerli/Prater network will retain the Goerli name post-merge. Bellatrix, the Prater upgrade readying it for The Merge will happen at epoch 112260, expected at 12:24PM UTC on August 4, 2022. After Bellatrix is activated, the Goerli/Prater merge will happen when Goerli hits a total difficulty of 10790000, expected between August 6-12, 2022. Post-merge, Goerli's validator set will remain open for individual stakers to run testnets validators. Stakers who wish to start a Goerli/Prater validator can do so at the Prater Launchpad.

Note: on July 5, 2022, the recommended releases for go-ethereum and Erigon were modified. See "Client Releases" for details. Sepolia will be the second of three public testnets to run through The Merge. The network will transition to proof-of-stake when the total difficulty on the proof-of-work chain exceeds 17,000,000,000,000,000, which is expected to occur around in the next few days. Post-merge, Sepolia will have a permissioned validator set, like existing proof-of-authority testnets. Goerli/Prater, which will merge at a later date, will maintain an open validator set to allow for stakers to test the transition.