Today, Ropsten, Ethereum’s only Proof-of-Work testnet, launched its Proof-of-Stake beacon chain. On June 8, the two are likely to merge. The beacon chain on Ethereum’s Ropsten Testnet is now live. Ropsten is expected to merge with its beacon chain.
Ropsten beacon chain genesis was a success! ?
Few validators are offline and expected due to testing,
anyone can follow the progress here: https://t.co/ukRaNFpyzP pic.twitter.com/TU61t5lC78
— terence.eth (@terencechain) May 30, 2022
A successful merge of Ropsten with its beacon chain, according to Ethereum developers, would be a “huge milestone” in the process of transitioning Ethereum to Proof-of-Stake.
The launch puts Ethereum one step closer to its transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake, which has been dubbed the “Merge” in the crypto community. Preston Van Loon, an Ethereum developer, stated on Twitter on May 18 that the Ropsten Testnet would merge with its beacon chain on June 8, calling it a “major milestone” toward the Ethereum mainnet merge with its beacon chain.
The Ropsten Testnet, which was launched in 2016 and is named after a Stockholm metro station, is widely regarded as one of the most accurate replicas of the Ethereum mainnet. Because of the strong likeness, developers conduct realistic testing before deploying updates to the mainnet. On the network, more than 10 million ERC-20 testnet tokens have been issued.
Ropsten is unique in that it is Ethereum’s only Proof-of-Work testnet, faithfully simulating any gas fee fluctuations that developers or users would encounter on the Ethereum mainnet. The mainnet transition would be aided if Ropsten’s Proof-of-Work testnet and Proof-of-Stake beacon chain could be merged.
The Mainnet merge is tentatively scheduled for August, according to Van Loon, however, Ethereum creator and co-founder Vitalik Buterin has been more cautious, saying it could happen in September or October.
On May 30, 2022, around 15:00 UTC, the beacon chain scanner displays Ropsten’s first few blocks being produced. The graffiti “Lodestar-v0.37.0-dev.2883368c84” appears in the first validated block.
The debut of Ropsten’s beacon chain comes just five days after Ethereum’s beacon chain had a seven-block reorganization, which developers claim was caused by known bugs and out-of-date client software.
