Following the statements from Ethereum developer Preston Van Loon at the Permissionless conference, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has further confirmed The Merge will likely happen in August. Buterin noted, however, that it’s quite possible there’s still a risk of delay, and The Merge could happen in September or October 2022.
The Merge Could Happen in August, Buterin Says
Just recently, Vitalik Buterin spoke at the ETH Shanghai Web 3.0 Developer Summit and Ethereum’s co-founder discussed the highly-anticipated proof-of-stake (PoS) transition. The Merge is scheduled to go live on Ethereum’s testnet Ropsten in 18 days on June 8, 2022.
During the ETH Shanghai Summit, Buterin explained that the transition will be a major test for the entire Ethereum ecosystem. “This will be a major test, larger than any of the tests that we have done before,” Buterin stressed. “Taking a large existing test network with many applications with proof-of-work, moving into proof-of-stake.”
Ethereum roadmap which includes The Merge, The Surge, The Verge, The Purge, and The Splurge.
Furthermore, Buterin confirmed that The Merge may be implemented by August, as ETH software developer Preston Van Loon had said the same at the Permissionless conference. However, while Buterin did mention the month of August, he also eluded to delays.
“If there are no problems then the merge will happen in August,” the Ethereum co-founder said. “But of course, there’s always a risk of problems. There’s also a risk of delays. And so September is possible and October is possible as well,” Buterin added.
Meanwhile, The Merge is the first of Ethereum’s major upgrades following the London upgrade, which implemented ETH’s burn mechanism. Following The Merge, Ethereum will implement The Surge, The Verge, The Purge, and finally The Splurge.
The Surge aims to help improve scaling by leveraging zero-knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups) via sharding techniques. Ethereum’s The Verge transition will apply Verkle trees in order to achieve statelessness by using the Merkle proof upgrade.
“The structure of nodes in a hexary (16 children per parent) Verkle tree, here filled with six (key, value) pairs,” Vitalik Buterin said in a blog post about Verkle trees.
The Purge will add an EVM simplification track and eliminate historical data and technical debt, according to the Ethereum roadmap. Finally, The Splurge revolves around “Miscellaneous but important extras.”
Buterin also talked about The Surge and noted that after these two upgrades (Merge & Surge), Ethereum will be “a great system.”
Tags in this story
Buterin, ETH Shanghai Web 3.0 Developer Summit, ether, Ethereum, Ethereum Developers, Ethereum The Merge, Permissionless conference, Preston Van Loon, Risk of Delay, Scaling, Sharding, statelessness, The Merge, The Purge, The Splurge., The Surge, The Verge, Verkle trees, Vitalik, Vitalik Buterin, ZK rollups
What do you think about Vitalik Buterin’s comments about The Merge and the Ethereum roadmap? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Jamie Redman
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
