Ethereum Merge Update: ETH Testnet Kiln To Be Shutdown During Merge Week

Ethereum Foundation on Friday announced the shutdown of the Ethereum Merge testnet Kiln during the week of September 12. Moreover, Ropsten and Rinkeby testnets will also deprecate and shut down after the Merge in Q4 2022 and Q3 2023, respectively. As per Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, the Merge is estimated to happen between September 13-15.

Ethereum Foundation Announces Kiln Testnet Shutdown

Ethereum Foundation in an official announcement on September 9 said the Kiln testnet will be shut down next week as the testnet is now deprecated. The Kiln was launched in early 2022 for testing post-merge Ethereum prior to existing testnets merging. All bootnodes and validators related to the testnet will be turned off.

“While anyone can run a node on the network, bootnodes and validators maintained by client and testing teams, as well as infrastructure providers, will be turned off at that point.”

Other Merge testnets Ropsten and Rinkeby are also deprecated. It should be shut down in Q4 2022 and Q2 2023, respectively. While the testnets will remain active after the Merge, infrastructure providers may gradually remove access to Ropsten and Rinkeby testnets with time. Ethereum’s longest-lived proof-of-work testnet Ropsten has transitioned to proof-of-stake, but client developers have decided to deprecate it.

Users and developers must migrate to Goerli or Sepolia testnets as developers decide to maintain and upgrade these testnets after the Merge. Goerli has an open validator set, useful for testing complex smart contracts, and requires more storage. Whereas, Sepolia has a closed validator set, is less used than other testnets, and requires minimal storage.

Ethereum Merge Will Trigger Before September 15

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin claims the much-awaited Ethereum Merge will happen between September 13-15. The Merge will trigger at the TTD of 58750000000000000000000, marking Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake consensus.

As per OKLink “Ethereum The Merge Countdown” data, the network hash rate is 885.77 TH/s. A hash rate of 872 TH/s is enough to trigger the Merge on September 15. However, the hash rate has jumped near 900 TH/s.

Moreover, Ethereum Foundation’s merge countdown tracker estimates the Merge on September 14 at 20:58:31 UTC.