The Ethereal [ETH] The all-core developer meeting concluded at the end of August 18 as they prepared for the upcoming merger. Several important issues were discussed, including the consequences of the sanctions imposed on Tornado Cash. The developers also discussed the issues that have emerged from merging testnet for Ethereum PoS transition. Journalist Christine Kim and Ethereum Core developer Tim Beiko have posted their views on the ACD call for their respective followers. Beiko also ascertained that Merge’s launch is scheduled for September 15 with Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD) now confirmed. However, this date may vary based on changes to the network hash rate.
We then discussed the TTD we set on the CL call last week. Although there have been some small fluctuations in the hashrate, the ETA for 5875000000000000000000000 is still ~ September 15th, so we have decided to keep it. In short, TTD confirmed ✅! You can track the ETA at https://t.co/WTUWIu0GzK
– Tim Beiko | timbeiko.eth ? (@TimBeiko) August 18, 2022
The clock is ticking
Beiko further states that the call covered “all things about fusion as well as MEV enhancement and censorship resistance at the protocol level.” He also touched on many of the “softer governance questions” surrounding Ethereum.
We closed another one @eterum #AllCoreDevs previously, covering everything Merge related as well as mev-boost and censorship resistance at the protocol level. This was a far less “procedural” call than usual and touched on many of the “softer” governance issues around Ethereum. https://t.co/qW4buOzHqM
– Tim Beiko | timbeiko.eth ? (@TimBeiko) August 18, 2022
Tim Beiko updated on the upcoming Sepolia Merge which was supposed to be underway on August 18th. It has since been postponed to August 21 due to some offline validators. Developer Micah Zoltu also raised issues of urgent importance during the call. His summary of the matter has been posted here. First, Zoltu raised concern over the censorship of Ethereum transactions by MEV relays. He raised another similar issue about Ethereum transactions by big staking as a service provider (Lido, Coinbase).
Christine Kim also shed light on Ethereum’s censorship resistance issues stemming from the Tornado Cash crisis. As has been widely reported, the US government has proposed sanctions against Tornado Cash, a small contract privacy tool on Ethereum. She goes on to say that many Ethereum developers were “adamant that the censorship-resistant qualities of the network should be maintained at all costs.”
Yesterday, Ethereum’s lead developers discussed at length different attack vectors against protocol censorship resistance after Merge’s update and what strategies should be adopted to uphold the integrity of the protocol in the face of potential state-level opposition. .
– Christine Kim (@christine_dkim) 19 August 2022
All said and done
Insights state that preparations for the merge are in full swing according to the Ethereum developers. The pressure to finally release the merger was a major contributor to them as it has been repeatedly delayed over the past few months. ETH, however, suffered greatly in the August 19th sell-off. The ETH token has lost key support as it plummeted below $ 1,700 as daily losses accumulated to over 9% according to CoinMarketCap.