The Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) of 58750000000000000000000 will be the trigger for the mainnet migration to a proof-of-stake network, according to the Ethereum (ETH) Foundation, which is expected to take place between September 10 and September 20, as reported by the Cryptoslate.
The Bellatrix upgrade slated for 11:34 UTC on Sept. 6 is the first step in the migration, per the blog post from August 24. The proof-of-work hash rate would determine the timing of the merge, the Foundation said further, noting that “if additional hash rate joins the network, TTD would be attained sooner.” Similar to this, TTD will be reached later if hash rate abandons the network. Several business insiders had earlier forecasted that the merger may occur on September 15, Cryptoslate noted.
In order to stay connected to the network after the merge, node operators must maintain an execution and consensus layer client. “Validators must ensure that user transactions and state transitions blocks that they construct and attest to are valid,” according to the specification.
The Foundation also announced a $1 million bounty for white hat hackers who discover significant network flaws between now and September 8. Developers had reportedly discovered problems in two Ethereum clients’ mainnet merging updates. These bugs won’t likely prevent or postpone the integration, though.
(With insights from Cryptoslate)
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