Ethereum's Bellatrix upgrade rattles nerves, but it will be overnight

The Bellatrix upgrade was the last major update before the Ethereum merger, which will bring the network consensus mechanism to the proof of participation. New

The Bellatrix upgrade preparing Ethereum for the merger was successfully completed on Tuesday. However, concerns have been raised over the almost one in ten missed block rate over the past 600 slots.

The Bellatrix update updated Ethereum consensus layer clients to epoch 144896 on the Beacon chain ahead of the next merge scheduled for next week.

However, 5% of validators disconnected during the hard fork, which contributed to the 9% missed block rate, according to Gnosis co-founder Martin Köppelmann. This has led some observers to question the network's readiness for the big move to proof-of-stake (PoS).

Missed block rate in the last 600 slots: >9% Historically, this rate has been around ~0.5%. This shows that Bellatrix caused problems for some validators. Nothing dramatic but still a number to watch.

— Martin Köppelmann (@koeppelmann) September 6, 2022

Köppelmann added that the 9% figure was 1,700% higher than the historic missed block rate of 0.5%. The problem may be related to the 25.6% of customers that Ethernodes cites as "not ready" for The Merge.

Percentage of Ethereum clients ready for merge. Source: Ethernodes.

Cinneamhain Ventures Partner Adam Cochran