The Merge is anticipated to be implemented next week, or roughly four days from now, and Ethereum will switch from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS). Before the Paris upgrade, the 13th and final shadow fork was successfully coded, according to Ethereum developers.

Ethereum’s 13th and Last Shadow Fork Is Complete

Social media was a hive of activity on Friday as people discussed The Merge and Ethereum’s switch from PoW to PoS. Furthermore, the final shadow fork has been completed, according to ETH developers and the Ethereum research and engineering firm Nethermind. In essence, a shadow fork is an upgrade made to the current Ethereum mainnet, and the general public is unaware of the testing stage.

With the most recent shadow fork, ETH developers have successfully completed 13 shadow forks thus far. All Nethermind nodes successfully transitioned to Mainnet-Shadow fork-13, the final shadow fork prior to The Merge, according to research released by Nethermind on Friday. In addition, there are tools to assist testing, including a shadow net scanner, a shadow net mainnet explorer, and a shadow net Beacon Chain explorer.

The last pre-Merge transition before the Paris Upgrade, known as Bellatrix, was covered by Bitcoin.com on September 6. After the final PoW block is mined, Paris will start The Merge, at which point an Ethereum validator will begin mining the subsequent block. The Merge will be entirely finished if that block can be successfully mined by a validator.

After the shadow fork, an Ethereum developer wrote, “MSF13 merged earlier today, we saw attestation rate drop to -97%.” The node believed it was on the incorrect shadow fork as a result of some stale data on one node that I neglected to clear up. There were no other client compatibility problems.

The successful completion of the shadow fork on Friday indicates that The Merge is ready to take place, and any entities still using ETH software will need to update. While some people praised the shadow fork, others decried Ethereum as being “centralized” and criticized it. Following the 13th shadow fork on Saturday, there was a lot of discussion about the test on websites like Reddit and Twitter.

When the network reaches a Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD) value on the execution layer, which will be 58750000000000000000000, the Merge will be put into action. On September 14, 2022, or about four days from the time this post was written, this is anticipated to occur.