ETH up by 11% as Ethereum community remains optimistic about the Merge 

Ethereum [ETH] developers concluded their latest fortnightly call two days ago. All eyes are on the Merge transition scheduled for September. But before that there are still some things to be crossed off the list. The call put forth pressing concerns for the developers and scheduled updates for the ecosystem. Market optimists are counting on the Merge for an upturn in prices as crypto reacts to the latest price hike.

No turning back

As always, Christine Kim was to create a brief on the meeting’s discussions as they happened. Developer Mikhail Kalinin proposed a latest concern around the discrepancies among EL clients. As per Kalinin there are issues around conflicting blocks as we the time of the Merge. He also raised an issue related to Ethereum CL nodes that perform an “optimistic sync” of the blockchain. Finally, the last issue was in regard to the MEV-Boost software during the call.

Tim Beiko, an Ethereum core developer, further announced the news for the launch of the Goerli/ Prater Merge. This is the last testnet proof-of-stake (PoS) transition as the Merge edges closer. Prater is expected to run through the Bellatrix upgrade next week on August 4^th. The merge with Goerli is then scheduled between August 6-12^th. Beiko concludes that “if you run a node or validator, this is your last chance to go through the process before mainnet”.

Meanwhile, OP Labs released about an update about EIP- 4844 to be launched on Ethereum. This update seeks to increase Ethereum’s scalability without “sacrificing decentralization. This development has been contributed by researchers and developers from various organizations. These include the Ethereum Foundation, Coinbase, OP Labs, ConsenSys and Prysmatic Labs. As per the tweet, the EIP-4844 aims to “drastically” decrease rollup fees to further incentivize users.

EIP-4844 will drastically decrease rollup fees, enabling Ethereum to scale without sacrificing decentralization.

Researchers and devs from @OPLabsPBC, @Coinbase, @ConsenSys, @prylabs, and the EF recently joined the second community call coordinating these efforts.

— OP Labs (@OPLabsPBC) July 29, 2022

What now for ETH?

If this isn’t good enough news, the crypto market has reacted jubilantly to the Fed’s interest rate hike. ETH prices crossed $1,750 for the time since early June. Optimism is running high in the Ethereum ecosystem with the Merge preparation in full swing already. Trader sentiment is also expected to experience a major shift with even BTC briefly crossing $24k.