By
Temitope Olatunji
April 18th, 2024
Sepolia was launched in October 2021 and was confirmed by Core Ethereum developer Tim Beiko that Ropsten would more likely phase out.
Earlier this month, it was announced that Ropsten Beacon Chain had been launched as a testnet for Ethereum users. This set it up as the first long-standing testnet to be extended through the Merge. Ropsten was launched in 2016, and its merge was facilitated on June 8.
According to the latest announcement, The Sepolia testnet Beacon Chain has also been launched. According to the report, the Sepolia testnet would make full use of the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism rather than the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism upon the Beacon Chain merge. The testnet launch provides the grounds for the merge dress rehearsal of which Ethereum network developers would be provided with important technical ideas.
Sepolia was launched in October 2021 and was confirmed by Core Ethereum developer Tim Beiko that Ropsten would more likely phase out. In this case, it would be replaced by Sepolia. To avoid inconveniences, projects running on the Ropsten have been asked to migrate to Sepolia. Testnet mergers are said to be very important to Ethereum developers as well as independent projects who make use of the Ethereum network. With the environmental concerns raised against most of the cryptos, the Ethereum mainnet merge would aid the transitioning of the network to PoS consensus. This would reduce energy consumption by 99.9%. It is worth noting that Sepolia and Ropsten have been designed to operate like the operating conditions of their respective mainnet without compromising the effectiveness of their live mannet.
Over the years, the merge date on the Ethereum mainnet has been postponed. According to reports, it is expected to be completed in August 2022. It is expected to spawn the consensus layer (Ethereum 2.0) once completed. It is also important to note that the date of completion could be further delayed due to separate delays in the difficulty bomb. Difficulty bomb disincentivizes Ether miners noted to be using physical devices. This is done by increasing the difficulty of producing a new block.
The ETH price has not reacted much to the announcement as it has surged by 3.3% in the last 24 hours. With a price of $1,163, the asset is 76% down from its all-time high price of $4891 recorded last year. However, the price is 276,000% higher than its all-time low.