Ethereum's first mainnet shadow fork goes live, officially transitioning towards PoS

As Ethereum transitions to a Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism, the first mainnet shadow fork of Ethereum went live on the 11th, marking an important milestone in the shift to a Proof of Stake consensus.

According to a report, Parithosh Jayanthi, a developer at the Ethereum Foundation, stated that the shadow fork provides developers with a space to conduct stress tests to check if the underlying assumptions hold true for the existing testnets and mainnet.

In a tweet, he mentioned that the purpose of the Kiln merge testnet is to allow the community to practice running their nodes, deploying contracts, testing infrastructure, and more.

Wondering what the #TestingTheMerge team has been up to?

The aim of the Kiln merge testnet was to allow the community to practice running their nodes, deploying contracts, testing infrastructure, etc. We hope it's helping the community get a sense of the post merge world!

— parithosh | 🐼👉👈🐼 (@parithosh_j) April 10, 2022

Kiln refers to the final merged testnet involving the transition of Ethereum's execution layer from PoW to PoS. In a blog post by the Ethereum Foundation, this merge is described as the result of "six years of research and development" aimed at making the network more secure and energy-efficient.

According to data from the open-source Ethereum 2.0 beacon chain explorer beaconcha.in, the total amount of Ether staked on the Ethereum beacon chain is rapidly approaching 10.9 billion, with an average balance of 33.5 Ether. The beacon chain currently has over 340,000 validators, showing a 13% increase from the initial record of 300,000 validators in early March.

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