Beacon Chain being tested on Sepolia- The Cryptonomist

It’s official: the Beacon Chain Merge will be performed also on Ethereum’s Sepolia testnet. 

The Ethereum Sepolia Beacon Chain has been deployed!

The Merge is coming ?? https://t.co/IuJBnFp0Xx

— Crypto-Gucci.eth ᵍᵐ?? (@CryptoGucci) June 20, 2022

In fact, the new code has been prepared and published that will allow the Merge to be carried out also on this testnet, following the successful one that took place on Ropsten. 

After the Merge, Sepolia will attempt to reach consensus via Proof-of-Stake (PoS) instead of Proof-of-Work (PoW) as is the case now, in order to verify whether the transition can really be painless, and whether the new consensus algorithm is really able to completely replace the previous one without any problems. 

The exact date for this second Merge test has not yet been set, but it is expected soon. 

It will be another important step towards the actual final Merge with the Ethereum mainnet, planned for autumn. 

Tests leading up to the Proof of Stake on Ethereum

So far, all the tests have been positive, although not without problems, but the developers are proceeding anyway with cautious steps to avoid any risk of creating serious problems. 

One only has to consider that on the various DeFi protocols on Ethereum, based on the current PoW blockchain, there are still more than 45 billion dollars locked, so in the event of even a partial failure of the final Merge, enormous problems could be unleashed on the entire crypto ecosystem. 

Sepolia is a very recent testnet, launched only in October 2021 with the express purpose of serving as a test platform for the transition to PoS. One of Ethereum‘s most famous core developers, Tim Beiko, confirmed in April that Sepolia will in fact eventually replace Ropsten, the current main testnet, and in turn become the main testing platform for PoS-based Ethereum 2.0. 

For this reason, testing Sepolia is even more important than testing Ropsten, because in theory everything would have to work properly. In the event of problems, it is possible that the date of the final Merge could slip further forward. 

Early speculation regarding the possible date for the Merge, which came out at the end of last year, imagined that it could be done during this very month of June. Those assumptions then slipped first to August, and then to September, while now there is even speculation that it could wait until at least October. 

The test on Sepolia could be decisive in determining whether August remains a realistic projection, or whether the assumptions that the Merge could slip to September/October are more realistic, or whether we will be heading for a further postponement.