Title: Ethereum (ETH) to Pay $1M Reward for Bugs Spotted Before the Merge

Aug 25, 2022 06:32AM ET

By: AnalysisWatch

Ethereum's (ETH) long-awaited upgrade, "The Merge," is set to launch this September. The Ethereum Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind the blockchain, is making sure that all readiness goals are crossed off the checklist. To complete the readiness phase, Ethereum has quadrupled the reward for "white hat" hackers who are able to report a bug in the system.

The computing power behind the network support has a lot to do with the smooth transition to Proof of Stake (PoS). With the final test on Ethereum's (ETH) Goerli test network successfully completed, the transition to the main network is more ready than ever. As a result, the Ethereum Foundation announced yesterday that the initial phase of the merge is likely to start on September 6.

First, the upgrade from Bellatrix to Beacon Chain will officially begin at 11:34:47 UTC on September 6, 2022. The second part of the upgrade is called Paris, and it will likely launch between September 10 and 20. However, the exact date depends on the total terminal difficulty (TTD). It has to reach a certain TTD figure, which is highly dependent on the proof-of-work (PoW) hash rate.

The big names in the crypto world are laying the groundwork before the much-anticipated upgrade. The merger is backed by Binance and Coinbase, the two largest exchanges. In addition, Coinbase has introduced cbETH, an Ethereum (ETH) ERC-20 token.

The packaged and staked Ethereum (ETH) is "a utility token that represents ETH2, which is ETH staked by Coinbase." The main difference between cbETH and ETH2 is that the new token can be sent outside the Coinbase platform. ETH2, on the other hand, will need to be locked until the merger is finalized.