The Ethereum Bellatrix hard fork has gone live at epoch 144,896, bringing the network one step closer to the eagerly anticipated Merge upgrade. Several well-known Ethereum community members took to Twitter to welcome the upgrade as it launched.
According to sassal.eth, the Bellatrix upgrade has been finalized.
"The Bellatrix upgrade just went live on the Ethereum Beacon Chain. Next up is the mainnet merge, which will happen in less than 9 days. The Merge is coming."
In a recent tweet, Binance announced the resumption of withdrawals and deposits of ETH and ERC-20 tokens after a temporary suspension.
Ethereum's proof-of-work (PoW) chain is expected to migrate to the proof-of-stake (PoS) chain upon hitting the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) value of 58750000000000000000000. The execution layer upgrade (Paris) is expected to take place between Sept. 10 and 20. The current estimation lies at the ETH mainnet block height of 15,540,293, or approximately on Sept. 15 at 12:30 a.m.(UTC).
Developers have been working diligently on preparing Ethereum for a potential switch from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake throughout the network's existence. The Beacon Chain was established on Dec. 1, 2020, and it has since functioned alongside the mainnet as a separate blockchain.
The Merge represents the joining of the existing execution layer of Ethereum (the mainnet currently in use) with its new proof-of-stake consensus layer, the Beacon Chain. The transition eliminates the need for energy-intensive mining and instead secures the network using staked ETH.
ETH/BTC reaches its highest ratio in months
The ETH/BTC ratio has reached its highest in months as Ethereum reached a fresh yearly high against Bitcoin at 0.084 BTC.
At the time of publication, Ethereum was changing hands at $1,667, up 6.05% in the last 24 hours. Expectations remain in place following the successful completion of the Bellatrix upgrade, which will trigger the Merge mainnet update.