<p dir="ltr">As an expected event in the crypto world this year, <a href="https://www.builder.news/crypto-insights/the-merge-a-pivotal-event-for-ethereum" alt="The Merge: A pivotal event for Ethereum" title="The Merge: A pivotal event for Ethereum" target="_blank" rel="" class="">The Merge, which is known as a pivotal evolution for Ethereum</a>, will be launched in September 2022. The Merge has promised to create a lot of advantages for average users, such as expanding the network, reducing energy consumption, and more. It is well known that upgrading a blockchain network is difficult, especially when the network is as large and popular as Ethereum, which has so much value stacked on top of it. As a result, it is being done in stages to guarantee that all faults in the system are removed and that the final product, when released into the world, cannot be readily compromised by bad actors in the ecosystem. Let’s discover what The Merge went through before officially completing its journey with <a href="https://www.builder.news/" alt="Builder.news" title="Builder.news" target="_blank" rel="" class="">Builder.news</a>.&nbsp;</p><p class="prosemirror-p-center"><img src="https://cdn.builder.news/news/11ed2dd189896cdda8e6023f659fee92.jpg" alt="what has the merge gone through" title="what has the merge gone through" width="600" height="300" class="lykafe0"></p><h2>5th August 2021 - London Hard Fork upgrade</h2><p class="prosemirror-p-center"><img src="https://cdn.builder.news/news/11ed2dbfc43fd252a8e6023f659fee92.jpg" alt="London hard fork" title="London hard fork" width="600" height="400"></p><p>The improved Ethereum blockchain network has been dubbed the London hard fork. The term “London” appears because developer conferences were held in London. The London hard fork consists of five different Ethereum Improvement Proposals, including&nbsp; EIP-1559, EIP-3198, EIP-3529, EIP-3541, and EIP-3554. These many EIPs serve distinct functions but all of them aim to evaluate the Ethereum network.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">Following the change, the number of transactions per second grew considerably. Miners could no longer earn money from transaction fees with this version. The Ethereum currency gained value as a result of the reduced supply. Blockchain users at that time might simply predict transaction fees. Small investors and those who trade frequently benefit greatly from the certainty of transaction costs. Furthermore, lower expenses tend to attract more investors which allow the price to rise in the long run.&nbsp;</p><h2>27th October 2021 - Altair upgrade</h2><p class="prosemirror-p-center"><img src="https://cdn.builder.news/news/11ed2dbfc43fe113a8e6023f659fee92.jpg" alt="Altair upgrade" title="Altair upgrade" width="600" height="362"></p><p dir="ltr">Altair is the first update to the Beacon Chain since its launch in December 2020, and it was the final before the union with the Ethereum mainnet and the transition to proof-of-stake (PoS).</p><p dir="ltr">The upgrade adds light-client support to the core consensus, improves beacon state incentive accounting, resolves certain issues with validator incentives, and increases the punitive parameters (penalties for offline validators) in accordance with Ethereum Improvement Proposal 2982. The Ethereum 2.0 Altair Beacon Chain update has started off well, with 98.7% of nodes already updated.</p><h2>15th March 2022 - Kiln testnet merge</h2><p class="prosemirror-p-center"><img src="https://cdn.builder.news/news/11ed2dbfc43fe58ba8e6023f659fee92.jpg" alt="Kiln testnet merge" title="Kiln testnet merge" width="600" height="400"></p><p dir="ltr">The Kiln testnet represents the fusion of the Ethereum mainnet and the Beacon chain, kicking off the entire shift from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake network consensus. Kiln's merge testnet works as a testing environment for developers, node validators, and stakers to test the functioning of their application(s) on the anticipated Ethereum upgrade to proof-of-stake consensus before The Merge.</p><p dir="ltr">Kiln began as a proof-of-work system before switching to proof-of-stake on March 15, 2022, and is still developed by the Ethereum developer team. There are presently 110,000 active validators on the public Kiln testnet, with 3.5 million ETH staked. Since its launch, the network has handled 1.3 million total transactions at an average rate of 8,000 per day.</p><h2>27th July 2022 - Tenth mainnet test shadow forks</h2><p class="prosemirror-p-center"><img src="https://cdn.builder.news/news/11ed2dd189897299a8e6023f659fee92.jpg" alt="Tenth mainnet test shadow forks" title="Tenth mainnet test shadow forks" width="600" height="400" class="lykafe4"></p><p dir="ltr">The mainnet shadow fork 10 was created in preparation for the Goerli testnet merging in August and the Merge upgrade on the Ethereum mainnet in September by the blockchain's core developers.</p><p dir="ltr">The update was completed on 26th July 2022, 26 hours ahead of schedule when the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) at block 15217902 was overridden at 54,892,065,290,522,348,390,492.</p><p dir="ltr">The mainnet shadow fork 10 is one of the final tests performed by Ethereum core developers in preparation for the anticipated September Merge. It should be noted that the MS10 occurs 11 days after the mainnet shadow fork 9. And unlike the Mainnet Shadow Fork 9, no major flaws were discovered in the tenth shadow fork.&nbsp;</p><p dir="ltr">During the tenth shadow fork, Ethereum developers reportedly focused on testing key releases similar to those in the next Goerli merging.</p><h2>11th August 2022 - Goerli testnet successfully merged</h2><p dir="ltr">On August 11, 2022, the Goerli testnet merging was completed successfully. The testnet Merge, which saw the Goerli testnet merge with the Prater testnet, a PoS Beacon chain, is the final test run before the Merge. When Goerli reached a total difficulty of 10,790,000, it merged with Prater.</p><p dir="ltr">A Goerli testnet that works Merge is the clearest indication yet that Ethereum's long-awaited "Merge," in which the current Proof-of-Work chain will "merge" with the Proof-of-Stake Beacon Chain, completing the network's transition to a Proof-of-Stake network, will take place this autumn. In this month's Consensus Layer Call, Ethereum Foundation member Tim Beiko predicted that the most probable date would be September 19.</p><h2>A head of The Merge launch - The bugs in Geth 1.10.22 upgrade</h2><p dir="ltr">On 24th August 2022, Péter Szilágyi, a software engineer for Ethereum (ETH), reported on Twitter that they have discovered a defect that leads to a corrupted state. He indicated that it was most likely one of the pull requests aimed at the new storage model or online pruner that was merged.</p><p dir="ltr">In a recent update, the developer stated that the issue would most likely affect individuals using the release by corrupting their database and resulting in data loss. He also stated that the data loss issue occurs during shutdown, which is why their testing was unable to detect the bug.</p><p dir="ltr">Despite the problems, the developers were able to deliver a solution within a day. Go Ethereum issued a hotfix to address the flaw. The team urged people who have upgraded to roll back and rerun to ensure that everything was still operating properly.</p><h2>The Merge</h2><p dir="ltr">There is rising optimism that the highly anticipated Ethereum mainnet merging with the PoS-based Beacon Chain will go off without a hitch, considering that Beiko has announced that the significant upgrade will take place on (or near) his recommended date of 19th September if the final merge trial runs go smoothly.</p><p dir="ltr">The Merge will drastically cut Ethereum's energy usage while moving the network one step closer to its long-term scalability, security, and sustainability goals, making it one of the most important updates in blockchain history.</p><p dir="ltr">After the Merge, the multi-phased sharding update will greatly improve the "distribution of data storage needs, enabling rollups to be even cheaper, and making nodes easier to manage," according to Ethereum's website.</p><h2>Bottom lines&nbsp;</h2><p dir="ltr">In order to reach this success, The Merge has to overcome many test versions as well as a lot of bug fixes. Therefore, bunking off several <a href="https://www.builder.news/crypto-insights/misconceptions-about-the-merge" alt="Unveil misconceptions about the Merge" title="Unveil misconceptions about the Merge" target="_blank" rel="" class="">misconceptions about The Merge</a>, it can not be denied that with this successful Merge, Ethereum will mark the end of proof-of-work and usher in a more sustainable, eco-friendly Ethereum. This will also pave the way for other scalability enhancements not achievable with proof-of-work, bringing Ethereum one step closer to the full scale, security, and sustainability stated in its Ethereum vision.</p><div class="pr-block-special"><strong>Disclaimer:</strong><br>This article is intended for and only to be used for reference purposes only. No such information provided constitutes advice or a recommendation that any investment or trading strategy is suitable for any specific name.</div>

In order to reach a new evolution, The Merge has gone through a lot of test versions to not only fix the maximum bugs but also create new experiences for users. Let's discover it through this article!

What has The Merge gone through before officially happening?