Ethereum Merge Activated: PoW Era Nears Its End

The Ethereum Merge has officially begun and is expected to be completed sometime between September 13th and 16th. This marks the transition of Ethereum's proof-of-work (PoW) chain to the proof-of-stake (PoS) Beacon Chain, following the activation of the Bellatrix upgrade on epoch 144896 at approximately 11:35 UTC.

As the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) value reaches 58,750,000,000,000,000,000,000, likely between September 10th and 20th, with predictions suggesting it will occur around September 15th, the network will merge its Execution layer with the new Consensus layer. This changeover to PoS consensus mechanism is expected to render PoW mining on Ethereum obsolete due to increasing difficulty levels.

The Merge has been a long time coming, dating back to December 2020 when the Beacon Chain was first introduced. A recent testnet, Goerli, served as the final dress rehearsal for the mainnet Merge, and its completion will mark the end of Ethereum's energy-intensive proof-of-work chapter.