Coming sooner: ETH devs move up the date for Merge

cointelegraph.com:

The Ethereum Merge may be coming sooner than planned, after core developers announced a tentative Merge date of Sept. 15, which will see the blockchain transition to Proof-of-Stake.

The Ethereum mainnet Merge date came into view after core developers such as Tim Beiko and Prysmatic Labs co-founder Terence Tsao agreed in an Aug. 11 developer call it would be when Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD) hits 58750000000000000000000.

This was confirmed in a Github post titled "Tentative mainnet TTD" which was committed to by Beiko on Aug. 11. 

While the exact date and TTD could be still be changed, the successes of the various testnet merges could be a promising sign that the Ethereum mainnet will transition to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus next month without issue. 

The new official schedule is at least three days earlier than Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko’s last prediction of Sep. 19.

Tentative Mainnet TTD 58750000000000000000000Note: nothing is final until it's in client release, so do expect changes last minute due to unforeseen circumstances https://t.co/PQ0YOKpk1u

The lengthy number provided is referred to as the Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD), specifying the end of Proof-of-Work (PoW) and when Proof-of-Stake (PoS) will begin. The TTD is the total difficulty required for the final block that will be mined before the transition to PoS.

Before the Merge can be completed, the Bellatrix fork must be performed which will implement the software needed for clients to run the consensus layer. This is scheduled to happen on Sep. 6, roughly 10 days before the Merge.

On Aug. 12, the Goerli testnet became the last remaining testnet to successfully perform its own transition to PoS, following the Sepolia merge on Jul. 7 and Ropsten on Jun.