Donald Trump Possesses Crypto Holdings Valued Up to $500K

Coinbase's Highly Anticipated New Core Blockchain Attracts Modest $10M Inflows Upon Launch

Innovative Bitcoin-Powered Arcade Game Makes a Lasting Impression on Gamers

As many as 73.5% of Ethereum nodes are now marked as “Merge ready” ahead of the upcoming Bellatrix upgrade for Ethereum on Sept. 6, according to data from Ethernodes. 

The Bellatrix upgrade is seen as one of the last necessary steps prior to the official Merge, which will see Ethereum transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism between Sept. 10-20.

To become Merge ready, Ethereum node operators must comply with the Bellatrix upgrade by updating its consensus layer clients prior to epoch 144896 on the Beacon Chain, which is scheduled to take place on 11:34:47am UTC on Sept. 6, 2022, according to the Ethereum Foundation.

Percentage of Ethereum clients that are Merge ready. Source: Ethernodes.

However, with 26.5% of nodes marked “Not-Ready” for the Ethereum Merge, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and core developer Tim Beiko and has taken themselves to Twitter to push the remaining node operators updates their clients.

The Ethereum Foundation warns that node operators who do not update prior to the Bellatrix hard fork may lead Ethereum clients to "sync to the pre-fork blockchain."

"[Node operators] will be stranded on an incompatible chain that adheres to old rules, unable to send Ether or operate on the post-Merge Ethereum network."

According to Ethernodes, the majority of "Not-Ready" nodes are still using the geth client and have not yet upgraded to Geth v1.10.23 or above.

Erigon, Besu, and Nethermind are among more Ethereum clients that require node operator updates.

Ethereum nodes must validate blocks and can be run by various Ethereum client software that differs in programming language and code base.

The final phase of the Ethereum Merge, known as the "Paris event," will take place after the Bellatrix update and will be triggered when the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) exceeds 58750000000000000000000, which is anticipated to happen around September 15.

Ethereum gets Bellatrix upgrade today. What changes with 'The Merge?' | Mint
A Beacon Chain validator will create the following block once the execution layer has gone over this TTD. This block's completion will signal the full conversion of Ethereum's blockchain to the proof-of-stake algorithm.

Ethereum users don't need to do anything with their ETH and other assets based on Ethereum during the Merge, according to the Ethereum Foundation, but they should be on the lookout for frauds that claim otherwise.

=========