Ethereum’s Mainnet Shadow Fork 10 Goes Live in Preparation for the Merge

As The Merge draws nearer, the Ethereum team has not relented in deploying preparatory upgrades and testnets. Barely two weeks after the Shadow Fork 9 went live, the Ethereum development team deployed the tenth shadow fork on the mainnet.

The tenth shadow fork is meant to test releases to be deployed in the Goerli merge

The tenth Shadow Fork went live at 11:45 AM (UTC) on July 26 – about 26 hours before the time it was slated to occur. The shadow fork materialized with an override of the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) at 54892065290522348390492 at block 15217902, as seen on etherscan.

Speaking on the update, DevOps at Ethereum Foundation, Parithosh Jayanthi, mentioned that the tenth shadow fork will help test the performance and stability of the upgrades that would eventually be deployed in the Goerli merge. The Goerli testnet merge is expected to occur on August 11, as noted by Ethereum developer Ben Edgington.

Jayanthi further highlighted the reason behind the early release of the tenth shadow fork – he cited an adjustment in computational power or the emerging hashrate, noting that either of the parameters could have quickened the process. Regardless, there were no issues recorded.

ETH whale addresses accumulation noticed as The Merge approaches

The tenth shadow fork is unlikely to be the last, as the community expects other shadow forks as a means of testing releases leading up to the Goerli merge. The final Merge, which would see the Ethereum Mainnet merge with the Beacon Chain PoS system, is expected to occur on September 19.

As the crypto community moves closer to the Merge, many enthusiasts have expectations, with the Ethereum team promising a lot of improvements post-Merge. Vivek Raman, the co-founder of Riseinvest, has also mentioned a few things to expect after the Merge, including ETH inflation drop from 4.3% to 0.22% and better security.

A few days back, cryptocurrency market analysis platform IntoTheBlock provided a chart showing massive accumulation in ETH whale addresses, possibly in anticipation of the Merge and a possible rally from ETH.