- Ethereum developers are looking to merge to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism by mid-September
- An agenda for an implementers conference suggested a date of September 19th
- The transition has been in the world for around eight years
Ethereum’s transition from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain will take place in the week of September 19th, according to an implementers conference call that took place last week. The news prompted a 20% move over the weekend and follows a successful testnet merge last month, bringing founder Vitalik Buterin’s seven-year vision closer to reality.
Eight Years in the Planning
In many ways, Ethereum 2.0 has been in the works since 2014 when Vitalik Buterin posted about the benefits of PoS, just a few months after he had first conceived the idea for Ethereum. He is said to have planned a transition to PoS by 2018, but the idea proved tougher to execute than to dream up, not least because it has morphed into a much fuller system upgrade due to the need to scale the ageing protocol to meet today’s needs, and challengers.
Nevertheless, work has progressed steadily on the upgrade, with mostly successful tests along the way, including some of the most important taking place in the last 12-18 months, such as the staking contract and the recent test merge.
September 19th Slated as Prospective Go-live Date
The result is Ethereum 2.0, and, eight years after Buterin’s first public consideration of changing to a PoS system, he finally has a (tentative) date to go live. The notes from the conference call, which outlined to topics to be discussed, included a timeline of events going forward:
This small note shows a clear time frame in mind for the final merge to PoS, although of course there could be delays if more testing time is required or if the team encounters problems. If everything goes to plan however, Ethereum’s eight year wait to move to a PoS system is just weeks away.
