Ethereum Successfully Conducts the Merge Upgrade on Goerli Testnet, ETH Price Shoots to $1,900

On Wednesday, August 10, Ethereum developers successfully implemented the Merge upgrade on the Goerli testnet in the final dress rehearsal before implementing this upgrade on the mainnet next month on September 19.

The Ethereum Merge upgrade will be a defining moment in the transition of Ethereum’s Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a more efficient and scalable Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network. The PoS system will also be more energy efficient and environmental-friendly.

Ansgar Dietrichs, a researcher with the Ethereum Foundation, called it “another successful test”. This was much-awaited development for the Ethereum community. The recent success with the Goerli testnet provides a green signal to move further with the mainnet upgrade.

The Proof-of-Stake on Goerli will be identical to how things work on the Ethereum mainnet. Soon after the implementation, Ethereum lead developer Tim Beiko said that they are observing if any potential issues arrive in the hours following the upgrade.

We want to see the network finalizing and having a high participation rate amongst validators and also make sure we don’t hit any unexpected bugs or issues,” said Beiko.

Beiko stated that they are currently checking the participation rate, which shows the numbers of validators online doing their duties. Another key observation will be regarding Ethereum transactions. Beiko said that it the blocks show actual transactions in them without staying empty, it will be a key measure of the test going well.

The last major check will be if the network is finalising which means that at least two-third of the validators needs to be online. As per Beiko, it would take 15 minutes in normal network conditions. If those three things look good, then there’s a long list of secondary stuff to check, but at that point, things are going well,” said Beiko.

The current Proof-of-Stake which runs on the Beacon chain allows users to stake a minimum of 32 ETH. Lower the barrier to staking has made Ethereum a much moire accessible system said Beiko.

He further said that testing the Merge has allowed developers to ensure that the software running the ethereum protocol was stable and that everything built on top of the network was ready for the transition”.

Soon after the news, the ETH price shot up straight above $1,800 levels. With the recent rally, ETH price has shot up nearly 80% over the last month. As the Merge upgrade get closer to its final date, the institutional excitement for Ethereum (ETH) has been growing very fast.