As much as 73.5% of Ethereum nodes are actually marked as “Merge ready” in front of the approaching Bellatrix upgrade for Ethereum on Sept. 6, based on data from Ethernodes.
The Bellatrix upgrade is viewed among the last necessary steps before the official Merge, that will see Ethereum transition to some proof-of-stake consensus mechanism between Sept. 10-20.
To get Merge ready, Ethereum node operators must adhere to the Bellatrix upgrade by updating its consensus layer clients just before epoch 144896 around the Beacon Chain, that is scheduled to occur on 11:34:47am UTC on Sept. 6, 2022, according towards the Ethereum Foundation.
However, with as much as 26.7% of nodes marked “Not-Ready” for that Ethereum Merge, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and core developer Tim Beiko and it has taken themselves to Twitter to push the rest of the node operators updates their customers.
Bellatrix is tomorrow Last opportunity to change your node should you haven’t yet!
We’re mergiiiing https://t.co/0VQ9zb6wjN
— Tim Beiko timbeiko.eth (@TimBeiko) September 5, 2022
Based on the Ethereum Foundation, node operators that do not result in the update before the Bellatrix upgrade may cause the Ethereum clients to “sync towards the pre-fork blockchain,” warning:
“[Node operators] is going to be stuck with an incompatible chain following old rules and will also be not able to transmit Ether or work on the publish-Merge Ethereum network.”
Based on Ethernodes, the majority of the “Not-Ready” nodes are located on the geth client, who haven’t yet upgrade to Geth v1.10.23 or greater.
Other Ethereum clients that need updating include Erigon, Besu, and Nethermind.
Ethereum nodes are needed to validate blocks and could be operated by different Ethereum client software that varies within the programming language used and code base.
Our validators are merge ready
— sassal.eth (@sassal0x) September 6, 2022
Following a Bellatrix upgrade, the final area of the Ethereum Merge will exist in what’s known as the “Paris event,” which is triggered once the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) reaches 58750000000000000000000, that is believed to happen around Sept 15.
Related: The Merge Q&A: A triumph for Ethereum — or perhaps a disaster waiting to occur?
When the execution layer exceeds this TTD, the following block is going to be created with a Beacon Chain validator. The finalization of the block will mark the entire transition of Ethereum’s blockchain towards the proof-of-stake mechanism.
Based on the Ethereum Foundation, Ethereum users don’t need to so something with their ETH and Ethereum-based assets throughout the Merge but should look for scams that suggest otherwise.
