Ethereum testnet Merge mostly successful — ‘Hiccups will not delay the Merge.’

Ethereum has now completed its second-to-last major Merge trial on the public test network Sepolia, paving the way for its transition to the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.

While it's been judged mostly a success, it was not incident free.

The final trial of the Merge is set to occur on the Goerli network over the next few weeks before the official Merge on the Ethereum mainnet can be given the go-ahead.

Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano, who hosted the Sepolia Merge livestream on YouTube on Wednesday, confirmed on Twitter that the Merge transition went through “successfully” and added that the testnet will be monitored over the next few days.

Thanks to everyone who watched the Sepolia merge livestream!!The Sepolia merge transition went through successfully (and the chain finalized!) so now it's time for monitoring over the next few days.Then we merge Goerli......then mainnet The Merge is coming

— sassal.eth (@sassal0x) July 6, 2022

Terence Tsao, an Ethereum protocol developer, also said the Merge transition itself had been a success but noted around 25-30% of validators went offline after the Merge due to “wrong configs.” However, he added that “hiccups will not delay the Merge.”

Sepolia summary:- Merge transition itself was a success - 25-30% of the validators went offline shortly after the merge- The offline validators were due to wrong configs- Since then, the offline parties have updated their configs, and validators are up(cont)

— terence.eth (@terencechain) July 6, 2022

Superphiz, a founding member of the ETHStaker Community, cautioned during the stream, however, that the actual success of the Merge won’t be known “for several hours or even until tomorrow.”

The final trial will occur on the Goerli test network. Superphiz added that the timing of the Merge will depend on the reviews of the Sepolia test.

The testnet Merges are a form of “dress rehearsal” that is essential to allow Ethereum developers and independent project developers to understand what they can expect when the actual Merge takes place.

During the livestream, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin admitted that one of the challenges facing the main network Merge will include “much more third-party infrastructure that isn’t present on the testnets.”

Related: Ethereum Name Service registrations surge by 200% amid lower gas fees 

“So there might be non-critical issues like that that will just pop up in the Merge that we’re not catching with these tests [...] There’s a lot of peripherals that are just not getting tested and that’s unavoidable and probably fine.”

Meanwhile, on exchanges

Despite the news, Santiment has warned of a potential Ether (ETH) sell-off, with total ETH supply on exchanges reaching a new high of 13.8% on Monday, the highest since January 3, 2022.

#Ethereum's price has rebounded mildly to ~$1,120 on America's birthday. This said, $ETH continues to move rapidly back on to exchanges and is close to breaking 2022 highs. There is higher risk of a selloff while coins are rising on exchange wallets. https://t.co/kJFZNCXV54 pic.twitter.com/JcmrHp80VK

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) July 4, 2022

As of Thursday, the percentage has declined slightly with around 13.25% of the total ETH supply sitting on exchanges.

The price of Ether is currently at $1,186 at the time of writing.