Ethereum has successfully launched the Bellatrix Upgrade, marking the beginning of Ethereum’s transition from Proof of Work (PoW) to a Proof of Stake (PoS) model. However, there were a some hiccups along the way to the Bellatrix upgrade.
Bellatrix Goes Live
On September 6th, Ethereum developers announced that the Bellatrix upgrade, the last major hard fork before Ethereum transitions from PoW to PoS, has been activated. The upgrade initiated the merge on the beacon chain’s backend consensus layer.
Ethereum developers took to Twitter to celebrate the successful execution of the Bellatrix upgrade, and will now turn their sights toward the final execution layer upgrade—Paris, which is expected to happen “around” September 13th to September 15th. One developer wrote:
Bellatrix activated!
Next stop: the merge
See you on the other sidepic.twitter.com/01FCSDyqs5
— terence.eth (@terencechain) September 6, 2022
Developers Explain the Reason for Missed Blocks
As the Bellatrix upgrade went live, the network’s “missed block rate” ( meaning blocks of transactions that failed to be verified) spiked by around 1,700%. Following Bellatrix’s implementation, more than 9% of all blocks were missed, compared to the 0.5% missed block rate before the upgrade.
Ethereum developers were quick to explain that the preparedness of the network’s node operators is what led to the missed block spike, after popular Ethereum developer Tim Beiko made the final call for node operators to upgrade, tweeting:
Bellatrix is tomorrow
Last chance to upgrade your node if you haven’t yet!
We’re mergiiiing
https://t.co/0VQ9zb6wjN
— Tim Beiko | timbeiko.eth
Core Ethereum developers claimed that the missed block rate could be traced to operators who had failed to undertake the software upgrade. According to Ethernodes, 21.3% of Ethereum’s nodes still have yet to upgrade their software.
On the Flipside
- Popular Bitcoiner Dan Held surmises that Ethereum’s transition to the more energy-efficient PoS consensus mechanism will “add pressure to Bitcoin’s energy consumption.”
Why You Should Care
The successful launch of Bellatrix puts Ethereum in position for the ultimate Paris upgrade, which will perform the final transition of the network’s execution layer to PoS.
Find out how the Merge is affecting the Ethereum network:
Sales Of Ethereum Domain Names Skyrocket on OpenSea Ahead Of The Merge
What is the price of ETH predicted to be after the merge? Read:
Ethereum (ETH) Mainnet Merge To Begin September 6th – What Is Predicted For ETH?