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Ethereum’s Third and Final Testnet Merge Goes Live on Goerli

Ethereum’s mainnet Merge with the proof-of-stake Beacon Chain should happen sometime next month.

Updated Apr 9, 2024, 11:04 p.m. Published Aug 11, 2022, 1:48 a.m.

Goerli merged with its Bellatrix beacon chain. (Lance Grandahl/Unsplash)

The third and final test environment network (testnet) merge before the Ethereum blockchain makes its long-awaited move to proof-of-stake from proof-of-work has successfully been completed.

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Goerli was the last of three public testnets to run through a “dress rehearsal” of the Merge. After this, the mainnet Merge is expected to occur sometime at the end of September.
The network transitioned to proof-of-stake (PoS) when the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) exceeded 10,790,000. That occurred around 1:45 UTC.
On July 27, Ethereum announced the Bellatrix upgrade to Goerli’s beacon chain, Prater, in preparation for the testnet merge. After the Bellatrix beacon chain was activated on August 4, all that was left was for it to merge with Goerli, so it the testnet could continue to run on the PoS chain.
The testnet merge takes the project one step closer to Ethereum's mainnet upgrade later this year. The two previous testnet merges, Ropsten and Sepolia, were largely successful as well, heightening Ethereum community confidence that the actual Merge should be able to happen this year.

Ethereum The Merge

Margaux Nijkerk

Margaux Nijkerk reports on the Ethereum protocol and L2s. A graduate of Johns Hopkins and Emory universities, she has a masters in International Affairs & Economics. She holds BTC and ETH above CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.