Ethereum gets Bellatrix upgrade today. What changes with ‘The Merge?’

Although the Ethereum Foundation does not actually use the term “Ethereum 2.0,” it is frequently used in the sector for better comprehension.

One of the steps in the update procedure, called “The merge,” is scheduled between September 10 and 20.

Prior to the final merge, the Bellatrix update for ETH is scheduled today, when the Ethereum Epoch value is anticipated to rise to 144,896 on the proof-of-stake chain.

The time it takes to mine 30,000 blocks is one epoch, according to the Ethereum Foundation.

The Bellatrix update is necessary for “the Merge” to go off without a hitch.

This upgrade consolidates the proof-of-stake chain with the current execution layer and is the last before the Paris Upgrade, which will occur after “the Merge” (current proof-of-work).

The Paris Upgrade will put a stop to Ethereum Blockchain mining and signal the switch from a proof-of-work validation system to a proof-of-stake validation mechanism.

An overview of Ethereum’s updates

The proof-of-work (PoW) approach was used to construct the Ethereum network, just like Bitcoin. This indicates that mining, which consumes a significant amount of energy, is required to create the Ethereum (ETH) coin.

But with Ethereum 2.0, which launched in 2020, several steps have been taken to switch to a proof-of-stake (PoS) paradigm. The goal is to increase the Ethereum network’s speed, effectiveness, and scalability so that more transactions may be executed concurrently.

From the current 20 transactions per second, capacity will be increased to 1,000–1,500 transactions per second. This figure may potentially approach 100,000 transactions per second if an external solution (roll-up) is used.

Additionally, the change would significantly cut down on energy usage, addressing the complaint that the blockchain is bad for the environment.

Since the beginning of Beacon Chain on December 1, 2020, Ethereum 2.0 has been introduced gradually through several stages.

Staking, an essential component of PoS conversion, is added to the Ethereum chain with the Beacon Chain upgrade.

Beacon Chain is an independent blockchain from the Ethereum mainnet, as its name indicates.

What follows The Merge?

Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, gave the project a 50% development progress rating earlier this year.

Along with this evaluation, he listed the merging, surge, verge, and other phases that Ethereum must take in order to achieve 100%.

The Bellatrix upgrade is scheduled to happen today, in which, the Beacon Chain is joined with the Ethereum mainnet, and the consensus algorithm is completely changed from PoW to PoS.

The next stage in the surge is to introduce the layer 2 scaling solution zk-rollups. A method called rollup uses an Ethereum sidechain to consolidate and execute several transactions at once.

By processing data elsewhere, the mainnet will be less stressed.

In order to enhance the number of chain verification participants, capacity storage is optimized, and node size is decreased.

After that, the purge eliminates extraneous historical data, and in the splurge stage, work is done to make utilization simpler.

The two most crucial processes here are merge and surge.

After merge and surge, after sharding is complete, Ethereum will be close to 80% complete, according to Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin.

Sharding

Sharding is a distributed database solution that speeds both network and database transactions. The trade ledger will support several users participating in the blockchain at once if sharding is used. Ethereum 2.0 intends to include 64 shard chains to speed up processing.

Serenity, the moniker given to the completeness of Ethereum, may be attained beyond 2023, according to industry analysts.

The future of Ethereum

The goal of Ethereum is to establish itself as the de facto blockchain platform for all decentralized applications.

However, it has had some growing pains.

Transaction speed has been one of the primary problems.

Ethereum has to be able to accommodate more transactions at once if it is to become the network for all decentralized apps.

Currently, whereas Ethereum can only handle 15 transactions per second, Visa can handle 50,000.

Will Ethereum 2.0 be able to address the issues with poor performance and high gas prices that users have?

Ethereum is now in a difficult situation.

By claiming to be “Ethereum killers,” other layer 1 blockchains like Cardano, Tezos, Polkadot, and Aptos are increasing their market share.

They all set out to increase network speed while maintaining security.

And layer 1 blockchains are not the only ones.

On the Ethereum blockchain, layer 2 scaling solutions are now taking shape with the goal of lowering gas costs and transaction speeds.

By processing and managing transactions off-chain before concluding them on the primary Ethereum blockchain, for instance, Polygon and Arbitrum claim to be complementary to Ethereum. However, they also want to get to layer 1 in the future.

Will this upgrade maintain Ethereum’s top spot among the numerous blockchains available today?

The Ethereum upgrade is anticipated to have a number of outcomes.

One of the anticipated outcomes is that a decline in the supply of Ethereum would increase the value of cryptocurrencies.

The Merge may allay concerns that increasing interest rates and inflation are plunging cryptocurrencies and stocks into a protracted bear market, according to Darren Langley, general manager of staking service Rocket Pool, who was quoted in The Defiant.

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