The Ethereum network’s core developers, including Tim Beiko of the Ethereum Foundation, report that the Gray Glacier hard fork successfully went live on Thursday.
Etherscan reports that at approximately 6:54 am ET on June 30, the upgrade was initiated on block number 15050000. Devs will now have until the middle of October to finish the eagerly anticipated Merge because the hard fork will delay the difficulty bomb by about 700,000 blocks, or 100 days.
The Sepolia testnet, which is the second final testnet to undergo the experiment before the actual Merge, is also scheduled to run through its Merge trial over the coming days.
Gray Glacier hard fork sees success
Later that day, Ethereum Foundation community manager Tim Beiko tweeted that all monitored notes were still in sync 20 blocks past the fork.
20 blocks past the fork and it's looking good: all monitored nodes except @OpenEthereumOrg, which doesn't support the fork, are in sync. No blocks on the old chain so far! https://t.co/kKdPwhmTrn pic.twitter.com/MX6ZaTrUzM
— timbeiko.eth (@TimBeiko) June 30, 2022
On Twitter, Ethereum ecosystem developer Nethermind likewise confirmed the hard fork’s completion and added that the difficulty bomb had been successfully delayed.
The difficulty bomb is a tool used to gradually discourage Ether (ETH) miners from Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining on Ethereum before the network merges with the Beacon Chain, which uses Proof-of-Stake (PoS).
Sepolia Merge
Beiko also posted a tweet from the Ethereum Foundation on June 30 saying that the Sepolia testnet, the second of three open testnets, will do a dress rehearsal of the Merge over the next days.
“With Ropsten already transitioned to proof-of-stake and shadow forks continuing regularly, Sepolia is now ready for the Merge,” the post said. “After Sepolia, only Goerli/Prater will need to be merged before moving to mainnet.”