Gray Glacier Hard Fork Went Live on Ethereum Without a Hitch
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The Sepolia testnet, the second-to-last testnet to go through the experiment before the actual Merge, is also scheduled to run through its Merge trial during the coming days. Etherscan reports that at about 6:54 am ET on June 30 started, the Gray Glacier hard fork block 15,050,000. As a result of the hard fork, the difficulty bomb will now be postponed by around 700,000 blocks, or 100 days, giving developers till mid-October to finish the much-anticipated Merge.
Tim Beiko, community manager for the Ethereum Foundation, immediately went to tweet later that day that at 20 blocks after the fork, all monitored notes were still in sync. He stated:
"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!"
On Twitter, Ethereum ecosystem developer Nethermind affirmed the hard fork's completion and added that it had successfully delayed the difficulty of the bomb.
A 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 following days.
"Sepolia is now prepared for the Merge because Ropsten has already switched to Proof-of-Stake, and shadow forks are still happening frequently. Only Goerli/Prater will require merging after Sepolia to go to the mainnet," the post continued.