With the Merge still at least three months away, Time Beiko, a core Ethereum developer, issued some advice and reminders to Ethereum developers and users.
Tim Beiko, a core Ethereum (ETH) developer, has issued a set of recommendations and expectations for Ethereum application and protocol developers ahead of the upcoming Merge.
Testing Things Out
Beiko just proposed that average app and protocol users try things out. As additional tests run, this assures that nothing breaks. On May 24, he tweeted that they had to run things and that if something was confusing or broken, they should write a comment.
Beiko advised users and developers to pay attention and prepare for the Merge. The Merge is the highly difficult and long-awaited conversion from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus on the Ethereum network. It will name as “Consensus Layer” at that point. It slates to happen around August of this year.
On numerous testnets, the focus has been on ensuring that there are no cross-client concerns. It also makes sure that current apps do not completely fail after the Merge. In a separate Twitter discussion, Beiko pointed out that such issues are likely to be uncommon. That’s because 99 percent of modifications have an impact on the protocol layer. The application layer, on the other hand, has seen essentially no modifications.
Two Significant Changes
Developers should be aware that there will be two major changes to how smart contracts work with the Merge, according to Beiko.
First, he reminded them that the approach for beacon randomization, which aids in the execution of apps, will be changing. This will require for the PoS transition. It also included in a November Ethereum Foundation (EF) upgrade.
The second modification will be a reduction in block times from 13 to 12 seconds each block. Following the Merge, smart contracts that use block production speed as a time measure will run one second quicker.
Despite the difficulties in completing the Merge, Beiko exuded confidence that all potential issues had condensed into a single echelon. Aside from cross-client testing and these two extreme situations, tooling and infrastructure pipelines pose the greatest risk of disruption.
Further Delay is Possible
He continued by stating that if any further difficulties occur during the extensive testing and shadow forks currently underway, the Merge would postpone further to protect the network’s security.
ETH investors concerned that their coins will release and dump when the Merge occurs should relax. On May 23, DeFi instructor Korpi explained on Twitter that the ETH staked on the Beacon Chain can no longer unlock. This is without the network upgrade later after the Merge. This includes staking-related prizes.
He also mentioned that once the coins unlocked, they will deliver in stages rather than all at once. He went on to say that the coins are often part of an investor’s “never-sell stack”. This means they are unlikely to be sold.
On the Beacon Chain, there are presently 12.6 million ETH staked. The Beacon Chain, which began in December 2020, was one of the initial moves toward turning Ethereum a PoS network.
