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Ethereum Merge testing on Kiln mostly successful, save for one minor bug

March 15, 2022No Comments


On Tuesday, Ethereum (ETH) developer Tim Beiko tweeted that Kiln successfully passed the Ethereum merger, with validators producing post-merger blocks containing transactions. Kiln will be the last Merge testnet (formerly Ethereum 2.0) before existing public testnets are updated. "Merging" involves taking the Ethereum execution layer from the existing proof-of-work layer and merging it with the Beacon chain's consensus layer, turning the blockchain into a proof-of-stake network. The foundation writes:

โ€œThis merger marks the culmination of six years of research and development on Ethereum and will result in a more secure network, predictable block times, and a 99.98% reduction in power usage when it launches on the mainnet later this year. of 2022".

However, it seems that not everything went according to plan during the tests. According for Kiln Explorer, there were several bugs related to creating contracts. in a tracing tweet, Beiko said that a client was not producing blocks consistently, although "the network is stable, with > 2/3 of the validators completing successfully." A fellow Ethereum developer, Marius Van Der Wijden commented on the matter as well, pointing out that Prysm was proposing bad blocks during the transition in Kiln.

Prysm is a variant of the Go programming language to implement the Ethereum Consensus specification. As it was told by Van Der Wijden, it turns out that one block had the wrong base rate per gas value, and replacing it with the actual expected base value seems to have solved the problem. In their official roadmapthe Ethereum Foundation states that the Merge update will be shipped by the end of Q2 2022. However, some features, such as the ability to withdraw staked ETH, will not be available immediately after the Merge, as the developers focus their efforts on the latest.