Ethereum to Finalize Testnet Merge as ETH Price Surges

As Ethereum Merge date nears, ETH price surged 14% and Goerli, the network’s final testnet before its transition to PoS, will occur next week.

Ethereum is just one step away from The Merge. And the final move is just a few more days away.

According to an announcement by the Ethereum Foundation, the Goerli/Prater testnet deployment, the final test to be completed before Ethereum’s highly anticipated transition to proof of stake (PoS), will take place next week.

Testnets like Goerli are dress rehearsals for the merge, which prepare for that event by moving the entire Ethereum mainnet over to a test network environment. The Goerli testnet will be the third and final such dry run. Earlier this month, the Sepolia testnet launched successfully; in June, the Ropsten testnet successfully transitioned to PoS.

Between August 6 and August 12, the Goerli testnet is scheduled to merge with Prater, its associated beacon chain. The main beacon chain is the proof-of-stake version of Ethereum that’s been running parallel to the current proof-of-work Ethereum network since December 2020.

The merge will move all Ethereum network activity off of its current proof-of-work chain, and onto the beacon chain. If the Goerli testnet goes smoothly, Ethereum’s core developers hope to deploy the merge on or around September 19.

In the network’s current proof-of-work model, ETH is created via an energy-intensive practice known as “mining,” in which so-called miners direct huge amounts of computing power to solving difficult puzzles, in the hopes of receiving blocks of new ETH.

The merge will end the practice of ETH mining, and replace it with a process in which holders of at least 32 ETH can pledge their existing ETH in order to create more. According to the Ethereum Foundation, the proof-of-stake model will make the Ethereum network 99% more environmentally friendly.

Because the practice of staking will likely lock up a large amount of ETH already in circulation, some argue that the merge will result in a deflationary effect on the cryptocurrency, keeping supply lower while demand holds constant or increases.

Perhaps for this very reason, ETH was up about 44% in the last month, compared to BTC’s 14.6% gain. According to CoinMarketCap, the price of ETH reached $1,742.42 this morning — a highest level that has never been seen since early June.

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