“Merging Ropsten is a key testing milestone toward Ethereum’s mainnet merging later this year,” said Preston Van Loon, a Prysmatic Labs Ethereum core developer.
The Ropsten testnet Merge, scheduled on June 8, will be a “major testing milestone” for the Ethereum ecosystem.

On Monday, Ethereum DevOps developer Parathi Jayanathi filed a pull request for the Ropsten testnet Merge configuration code on GitHub, indicating that the implementation is ready to go.

Ropsten is one of several Ethereum Foundation testnets launched in 2017 and is now managed by the Geth developer team.

Because it has a comparable network structure to the Ethereum Mainnet, this testnet is regarded as the finest replication of the Ethereum Mainnet. This allows developers to perform realistic deployment testing before making changes to the mainnet.

The Ropsten testnet Merge will combine the PoW network with a new PoS consensus layer testnet, with the genesis date scheduled for May 30. It will simulate what would happen when Ethereum and the Beacon Chain ultimately merge and the network becomes a PoS network.

Devs in the community have expressed their optimism over the testnet announcement online. Preston Van Loon, a Prysmatic Labs Ethereum core developer, stated:

“Ropsten testnet is getting merged on June 8! Merging Ropsten is a huge testing milestone towards Ethereum’s mainnet Merge later this year.”

Another core developer, trent vanepps, stated on Twitter last week, prior to Ropsten’s confirmation on June 8, that the Sepolia and Georli testnets may also be set up for trial Merges.

Notably, the testnet schedule corresponds to statements made last month by Ethereum developer Tim Beiko, who claimed that the Merge will not be ready to go live until “a few months after June.”

“No firm date yet,” he continued, “but we’re definitely in the final chapter of PoW on Ethereum.”

The Ethereum Foundation’s statement earlier this week that it had “merged” its PoW mainnet and PoS consensus layer bug bounty programs into one is another solid indicator that things are moving in the right direction.

In general, the maximum compensation for reporting bugs on Ethereum is now $250,000(R3 975). However, during critical moments such as upgrades on public testnets that are also set for the mainnet, the amount can be doubled.

“In total, this marks a 10x increase from the previous maximum payout on Consensus Layer bounties and a 20x increase from the previous max payout on Execution Layer bounties,” the announcement read.