The much-anticipated Ethereum Merge (The Merge) will be carried out in two stages. The “Bellatrix” consensus layer will be upgraded first at around 7:30 p.m. today (6), and then the “Paris” execution layer will be upgraded. According to Ethernodes data, 73.5% of Ethereum nodes are currently ready and waiting for the merger upgrade to arrive.
In order to participate in the Ethereum merge upgrade, each node operator must update its consensus layer client before the beacon chain reaches Epoch 144896. However, as many as 26.7% of nodes are still marked as “not ready”. In response, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and core developer Tim Beiko both called for node operators to update their clients as soon as possible.
According to the Ethereum Foundation, if node operators do not update in time for the Bellatrix upgrade, this will result in Ethereum clients being “synced to the pre-fork blockchain”:
(Node operators) will be stuck on incompatible chains under the old rules, unable to send ether or operate on the merged ethereum network.
The blocker previously reported that “Bellatrix” is a hard fork that merged Ethereum 1.0 and Ethereum 2.0, and it is also a necessary step before the formal merger. It is expected to be launched when the beacon chain reaches Epoch 144896; while “Paris” is the execution The transition of the layer from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS), that is, the formal merger, is expected to be triggered when the Mainnet Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD) is 58750000000000000000000, which will probably fall on September 10th to between September 20.
However, Vitalik Buterin provided more specific times, stating in an earlier Twitter post:
The merger is still expected to happen around September 13-15, what happened today is the Bellatrix hard fork to prepare for the next merger, but it’s still important.
The merge is still expected to happen around Sep 13-15. What's happening today is the Bellatrix hard fork, which *prepares* the chain for the merge. Still important though – make sure to update your clients!
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 6, 2022
While the exact date still depends on the proof-of-work hash rate, ethereum developers had also previously expected that the transition to the PoS network would happen on September 15.
