Ethereum’s Testnet Ropsten Completes Merge

Ethereum’s longest-running testnet called Ropsten, transitioned from a proof-of-work mechanism to a proof-of-stake algorithm on Wednesday, bringing the network one step closer to its actual transition to the Consensus Layer (formerly known as ETH 2.0) scheduled in August of this year. 

Bitfly, a blockchain technology firm, tweeted the news saying, “The Ropsten network just merged! One of the last testnets until we merge on the #Ethereum mainnet.” 

Ethereum’s official twitter account also retweeted a lightclients tweet saying, “Ropsten has activated proof-of-stake.” 

As it currently stands, Ethereum has been a proof-of-work blockchain since its inception in 2015. That means that transactions are validated and consensus is reached using lots of powerful computing hardware using an incredible amount of energy. 

In order to address the environmental issues, Ethereum is switching over to a proof-of-stake algorithm, which requires validators to use their Ethereum as collateral. If they act honestly and approve all valid transactions and deny all illegitimate ones, they will receive a portion of the transaction fees. However, if they act maliciously, some of their stake will not be returned, but burnt instead. This reduces the energy consumption by more than 99%. 

Despite popular belief, the Merge, or Ethereum’s transition is not expected to dramatically improve the transactions per second or transaction fees. These results were supposed to come via the sharding scaling solution, which was initially on track to release at the same time as the Merge. However, it was pushed back due to a number of layer 2 rollup solutions available. 

Now the Merge is one step closer with the Ropsten testnet transition. The testnet allows blockchain development testing before deploying any changes on the mainnet. The testnet is virtually identical to the mainnet, with the only key difference being that no “real” funds are at risk. 

Ropsten’s merge will inform developers of future steps to take when proceeding toward the real Merge on the mainnet. Other testnet merges, such as Goerli and Seoplia are expected in the coming months. 

Author: Tyler Irvin

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