Here At Last: The Ethereum Merge Is Officially Scheduled

We’ve been talking a lot about The Merge lately, and for good reason. Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake is one of the most anticipated events in crypto’s history, with many hopeful that it ushers in a golden era for Ethereum and decentralized finance.

After years of delays, it finally (sort of) has a date.

On either September 15th or 16th, the new era for Ethereum officially begins.

The Endgame

The catalyst for the date-setting was the completion of the last obstacle standing between Ethereum and The Merge: the merging of the Goerli testnet.

With that last hurdle successfully cleared, developers had the green light to set the Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD) to 58750000000000000000000. This means that the final proof-of-work block will be mined when this TTD is reached. After that, all subsequent blocks will be produced with proof-of-stake.

At the current mining rate, TTD is projected to be reached on September 15th. If the mining rate speeds up, TTD and The Merge will happen sooner. Likewise, If the mining rate slows down, TTD and The Merge will be delayed. That’s why the date is kind of, sort of the 15th or 16th.