Ethereum’s Metropolis Hard Fork Won’t Launch in June

Ethereum’s shift to proof-of-stake might have to wait a little longer.

After a few weeks of speculation, Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko confirmed in a tweet Tuesday that the long-awaited Ethereum Merge will come later than expected. Instead of June, Beiko said that the network’s transition to proof-of-stake is more likely to come “in a few months after.”

The Merge is a crucial moment for the platform that some belief could be a major catalyst for price growth. In addition to ushering in a new consensus algorithm, it will also introduce new features like sharding and eWASM support. All of these are expected to help scale up Ethereum, whose congestion has become notorious for leading to high fees and slow transaction times.

The news shouldn’t be too surprising. In recent days, as rumors of a delay have circulated, other prominent members of the Ethereum community have warned that an early summer launch was unrealistic. Last week, Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan told Cointelegraph that there was no way the upgrade would come in June and said he was “not sure” if it would be ready by July at all.

The change, which has been dubbed the “Ethereum Merge,” will see Ethereum move from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a PoS consensus algorithm. It’s been estimated that this change could slash Ethereum’s energy consumption by 99%, as well as make it easier for the network to scale.

The Ethereum 2.0 upgrade is expected to make the network more usable and reduce transaction fees for users. It should also launch a whole new type of asset, the staking token, which will give holders the ability to earn interest on their investments.

But as with all software development, setbacks happen—and this one is no exception. The news was confirmed yesterday in a meeting of the Ethereum Foundation’s Research Team. The group said that it won’t be ready to launch the update until sometime later this year at the earliest.