The co-founder of Ethereum (ETH) is providing an update about when the project will initiate the long-awaited network transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS).
Leading smart contract platform creator Vitalik Buterin gives his 4.1 million Twitter followers a detailed technical breakdown of the computing power required to complete the final block on Ethereum before the switch to ETH 2.0, a metric known as terminal total difficulty (TTD).
Buterin anticipates September 15th will mark the milestone event, as long as one factor holds.
“The terminal total difficulty has been set to 58750000000000000000000.
This means the Ethereum PoW network now has a (roughly) fixed number of hashes left to mine.
Bordel.wtf predicts the merge will happen around September 15, though the exact date depends on hashrate.”
Hashrate measures the processing power of the Ethereum network. Blocks are “hashed” and added to ETH’s blockchain as miners solve complex mathematical puzzles to confirm transactions. The hashrate indicates the number of times per second that the network can try to solve a puzzle, with a higher hashrate indicating an increasingly robust network that is more secure against an attacker.
Buterin recently said he expected ETH’s price to rise significantly once the transition was successful, sentiment echoed by former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes.
Earlier this week, the US Dollar Coin (USDC) stablecoin issuer Circle announced that it would only support the proof-of-stake chain once Ethereum 2.0 is operational, calling it the sole “valid” home for USDC relative to any potential network forks.
Decentralized oracle network Chainlink (LINK) also said that it will not support forked versions of Ethereum after the ETH upgrade is complete.
While Ethereum is heading into the weekend trading sideways, the second-largest crypto asset by market cap remains up 13.6% over the last 7 days and is currently priced at $1,896.
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