Ethereum testnet Kiln to undergo PoS upgrade on March 17

On March 15, the official blog of the Ethereum Foundation announced that the Ethereum merged public test network Kiln has been launched. The current network is in the PoW stage and is expected to undergo a PoS merge upgrade on March 17.

Like Ethereum mainnet, Kiln’s execution layer was launched under proof-of-work in parallel with the beacon chain running proof-of-stake. Kiln will fully transition to proof-of-stake early this week.

At the same time, the community's progress log mentioned that this merger of the test network Kiln will be the last merge test before the existing public test network is upgraded . The previous merged test network Kintsugi will be abandoned in the next few weeks.

Earlier on March 10, Ethereum Foundation member Parithosh announced on his social networking site that the Ethereum merged public test network Kiln has been launched. The PoW phase will last for a week, and the beacon chain will start at 22:00 Beijing time on Friday .

This also means that the much-anticipated “The Merge” on the Ethereum network is one step closer to becoming a reality after the launch of the final public testnet, Kiln.

The transition of Ethereum mainnet from PoW to PoS will be a major milestone in the development of the network. The next phase of Ethereum will make the security of the blockchain rely on staked tokens rather than expensive, power-hungry mining hardware.

However, the date for the Ethereum mainnet transition to proof-of-stake has not yet been determined. Assuming no issues are found with Kiln and clients finalize their implementation details, the existing Ethereum testnets (Goerli, Ropsten, etc.) will be run through The Merge. Once these have successfully transitioned and stabilized, again assuming no issues are found, the difficulty value will be set for the mainnet transition. Only then will it be possible to estimate the exact date for The Merge.

The official roadmap shows that The Merge is expected to take place in the second quarter of 2022. This will mark the end of Ethereum's proof-of-work and usher in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly era of Ethereum.