On September 6, one of the highly anticipated upgrades of the year, Bellatrix went live on the Ethereum network; however, the upgrade was met with a few technical anomalies in the middle of its deployment that led the crypto enthusiasts to raise a few inquiries.
Ethereum core developers have successfully carried out the deployment of Bellatrix, which is dubbed as one of the significant ETH upgrades before the merge. According to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Bellatrix hard fork update plays an essential role as the update aims to “prepare” the central chain to embrace the upcoming merge scheduled for September 13-15.
However, soon after the Bellatrix upgrade went live, the Ethereum developers encountered a few technical anomalies.
After the deployment of Bellatrix, the network has registered a big spike in its missed block rate, which in simpler terms, denotes the frequency with which a network is unable to authenticate the block of transactions queued for validation.
“Missed block rate in the last 600 slots: >9%. Historically this rate has been around ~0.5%. It shows that Bellatrix caused some issues for some validators. Nothing dramatic but still a number to keep an eye on.” as tweeted by Martin Köppelmann.
Missed block rate in the last 600 slots: >9%
— Martin Köppelmann 🇺🇦 (@koeppelmann) September 6, 2022
Historically this rate has been around ~0.5%. It shows that Bellatrix caused some issues for some validators. Nothing dramatic but still a number to keep an eye on.
This issue might have spurred because some of the Ethereum node operators may not have upgraded their clients before the merge was executed. However, the devs further noted that the anomaly is not consequential in nature and may get debugged before the final merge update is carried out.
Big spike in the missed block rate after Bellatrix update.
— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) September 6, 2022
Hopefully this can get debugged before the merge, we really don't want to be seeing unexpected issues at this late stage. https://t.co/yOBSzQtFUe
It is to be noted that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin alongside Ethereum developer Tim Beiko had tweeted regular announcements, urging operators to update their clients before the Bellatrix update execution.
The merge is still expected to happen around Sep 13-15. What's happening today is the Bellatrix hard fork, which *prepares* the chain for the merge. Still important though - make sure to update your clients!
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 6, 2022
Ethereum’s Shift To PoS Is Scheduled For Next Week
The second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum is all set to shift its mechanism to Proof-of-stake consensus from its earlier proof-of-work. The said transition is heralded as one of the central shifts in crypto history which will play an essential role in slashing Ethereum’s energy consumption by half.
The shift will also make the blockchain more sustainable and help in increasing its efficiency in terms of processing speed and transactions.
