Breaking: Ethereum Jumps 7% As The Final Merge Upgrade Goes Live

The Bellatrix upgrade has gone through on the Beacon chain. It is the last upgrade before the Ethereum merge is completed the next week. In anticipation of the Bellatrix upgrade, Ethereum prices have gone up close to 7%. It is currently trading at $1,688.

The After Effects Of The Bellatrix

The Bellatrix upgrade is the last upgrade before the final Paris upgrade that will complete the merge. The upgrade was scheduled at an epoch height of 144,896 on the beacon chain. It translated to 11:34:47 am UTC today. 

Ethereum merge is the transition of the Ethereum blockchain’s consensus mechanism from Proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. Proof-of-work relies on an energy-expensive mining process to verify transactions. The proof-of-stake mechanism eliminates miners and replaces them with validators. 

Ethereum currently consists of the consensus layer and the proof-of-work layer. The merge will combine the two layers and mark an end to the proof-of-work mechanism on the blockchain. The Bellatrix upgrade allows validator nodes to create proof-of-stake blocks. The blocks will contain the code for the merge.

The Bellatrix upgrade seems to have gone successfully. The network participation rate after the Bellatrix upgrade was 94.94%. The number of offline validators increased after the upgrade. However, that is just because some validators did not upgrade their nodes to be ready for the upgrade.

What Is Next For Ethereum Merge

The merge will finalize through the Paris upgrade. That upgrade will go live at the Terminal Total Difficulty of 58750000000000000000000. Moreover, the Paris upgrade deals with the execution layer and will put an end to mining on the Ethereum blockchain. The merge will finalize next week, though the exact time will depend upon the hash rate.

The core developer team will keep an eye out for any out-of-the-ordinary activity after the Bellatrix upgrade. Meanwhile, ETH investors would hope that the cryptocurrency continues its bullish movement leading up to the merge.