What is a Bellatrix hard fork?

The final Ethereum upgrade before the Merge happens today. Here’s what you need to kow about the Bellatrix hard fork. Ethereum is on the precipice of transitioning to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm, and the Bellatrix hard fork is the last major upgrade before the actual Merge takes place.

What happens after Bellatrix?

After Bellatrix, the Merge is scheduled to take place in the so-called “Paris” upgrade. It’s the execution layer’s portion of the transition, and it will be triggered by Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) of 58750000000000000000000. This is expected to take place between Sept 13th-15th.

What is the Bellatrix merger?

The Merge is a “two-step” process. The first step is the Bellatrix hard fork triggered by an epoch height. The second step is the Paris upgrade, triggered by the TTD threshold. Before diving into the specifics of the Bellatrix upgrade, it’s important to know its place in the overall roadmap toward the Merge.

What is a “hard fork”?

The result was a “hard fork” – a backwards-incompatible code change that created a new instance of the network – one where token balances were adjusted as if the infamous “The DAO exploit” never happened. But not everyone was on board.