The Merge: Ethereum’s Mainnet Upgrade

September 16, 2022

London, United Kingdom

⏰ 4 mins

TL;DR

“The Merge” is what Ethereum calls its mainnet upgrade intended to combine the Ethereum mainnet with the Proof of Stake Beacon Chain to make it more scalable and energy efficient. This shift from a Proof of Work to a Proof of Stake consensus includes various stages and is supported by Babb Platform. Following the merge, Ethereum (ETH) and BAX (ERC20) tokens are now supported on the Proof of Stake network. We will continue monitoring possible Proof of Work Ethereum variants (if any), however Babb does not support any Proof of Work forks initially.

Intro

From the day Ethereum was announced in 2015, the company positioned itself as a major player in the Blockchain industry, offering a popular decentralized computing platform that opened doors to many projects to salvage and innovate on the blockchain technology.

Now given its rising global popular demand and the platform being the most relevant of blockchains, Ethereum’s current infrastructure can’t scale up enough to meet global needs. So, to tackle that issue, the Ethereum team proposed a set of upgrades to its mainnet starting with the Beacon Chain, and followed by The Merge, The Surge, The Verge, The Purge, and The Splurge.

The upgrades: A brief explanation

The Ethereum 2.0 upgrades include the existing Beacon Chain (already in place), The Merge, as well as the next Sharding stages to be rolled out soon.

After full deployment of all upgrades, we will notice a new Ethereum blockchain that’s expected to be more scalable, secure and sustainable — while still preserving its decentralized aspect.

The Beacon Chain

The Beacon Chain was launched in December 1, 2020 as the first step of the shift. This introduced Proof of Stake to the Ethereum ecosystem and users were able to interact with the Beacon Chain by staking ETH or running a consensus client to secure the network.

The Merge

The Merge has integrated the two existing independent chains in the Ethereum ecosystem: the execution layer and the consensus layer (Beacon Chain).

Consensus mechanism

Following The Merge, Ethereum’s Proof of Work (PoW) is now replaced by a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Instead of mining, blocks are forged by nodes called validators. Before, the Beacon Chain only processed a portion of the network transactions. With The Merge, the Beacon Chain is the main place of consensus.

Token history

Ethereum’s transactional history are merged with the Beacon Chain, but its ether (ETH) currency remains as is. ETH and BAX funds remains accessible after The Merge, and token users are not required to take any action for this upgrade.

What is next after The Merge?

There will be follow up announcements regarding the future stages of Ethereum network upgrade, Babb will be monitoring these developments closely. In case Ethereum splits into two different networks, a process known as a fork, the “ETH” wallet on Babb refers to the new Ethereum PoS chain. Babb will not support the forked tokens initially. If a fork happens, Babb will evaluate the conditions and update the community in a future announcement.

How does The Merge impact BAX?

BAX is a token running with an ERC20 contract on the Ethereum blockchain. Now The Merge is rolled out, BAX transactions have transitioned to the new Proof of Stake consensus. The Merge does not affect the funds of holders. All funds have transferred over with The Merge, and ether still appears as ETH in users’ wallets.

How does the Merge impact Babb users and products?

For BAX holders and Babb users, Babb products remains unaffected for the most part. There may be temporary pauses on Ethereum (ETH) and BAX(ERC20) deposits and withdrawals in case any issues related to the The Merge are detected.

Please beware scammers offering “ETH2”, “WETH” or similar ETH variant tokens or request you to transfer funds to a random wallet address to “complete the upgrade.” BABB will NEVER ask users to send funds in this manner.

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