According to Ethereum core developers, today’s network’s 13th shadow fork was executed without apparent problems. The network’s developers deployed testing in the excitement surrounding Ethereum’s anticipated merge. This is to ensure that everything runs smoothly when the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, transitions to proof-of-stake next week.
Ethereum has today completed what its developers claim is the final dress rehearsal for the historic, massive upgrade that is expected to take place between September 13th and 15.
Today’s 13th shadow fork of the Ethereum mainnet went live without any problems. Shadow forks are focused trials of certain aspects of the merger, which test for possible issues and simulate the act to shift the Ethereum mainnet’s underlying mechanism, from the current, proof-of-work mining method, to proof of stake. This will stop the practice of mining on this network.
The test was successful with no issues to report
A number of Ethereum developers confirmed the deployment of today’s last shadow fork, Decrypt in a conversation with them. No issues surfaced,” said Ethereum’s core developer Marius Van Der Wijden.
Last week, the Ethereum network was hit by some problems during Bellatrix, an important pre-merge upgrade. Its “missed blockrate” spiked by 1,700%.
Missed-block-rate measures the frequency with which Ethereum fails to verify transactions that are slated for validation. This issue is common in blocks. However, it was a high of 0.5% for most. In the hours after the Bellatrix upgrade that number jumped to 9%.
The snag was caused by a lack of preparation from many node operators, who hadn’t updated their clients with the correct merge-ready software. Node operators are individuals or organizations responsible for maintaining the Ethereum network’s backend infrastructure.
The Bellatrix upgrade resulted in 25.2% of Ethereum nodes not having upgraded their software since then. According to Ethernodes, this figure has fallen to 15.4% as of writing.
Terence Tsao is an Ethereum core developer. He told Decrypt that today’s shadowfork tested the missed block rate issue and found it to be working “basically perfectly.”
Since the beginning of this year, the network’s developers have been practicing the merger almost every week. They are trying to simulate any possible scenarios that could delay or derail its execution. There is virtually no margin of error with the Ethereum network’s tens of trillions of dollars in digital assets, apps and decentralized finance instruments.
The developers of Ethereum have repeatedly expressed their confidence that the merger will proceed as planned. The test runs were continued, perhaps more so to give developers some assurance.
Van Der Wijden said, “It’s just the sanity-checking at this point.”
