The famous crypto company has announced the delay on its measure called “difficulty bomb.” Developer Tim Beiko announced the two-month delay on Twitter, with a tweet promising the new measure to users, just later than expected. 

Ethereum’s difficulty bomb, explained

The name of this measure might make it sound like an industry-only exclusive. But this revamping of this blockchain chain doesn’t only affect investors who want to buy Ethereum. The difficulty bomb is a code adjustment that will help through the company’s transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism. The change of networks is also called “ETH 2.0” and the transition is often called “Merge.”

This measure makes it harder for miners to verify the transactions on the blockchain. So, the miners focused on PoW neworks will profit less from their work and they will earn a smaller reward. If the measure is successful, it will disincentivize miners on Ethereum from keeping their physical services up and running. 

The ultimate goal of the difficulty bomb is to reduce the network’s demand of energy up to 99,9%. It’s no secret that mining operations aren’t sustainable. And Ethereum is taking a step forward to becoming more eco-friendly. Instead of using miners, ETH 2.0 will use randomly selected validators. While the code of this Ethereum measure has been a part of the blockchain since 2016, the entire transition isn’t complete yet. 

What the delay means for Ethereum

This isn’t the first delay of the difficulty bomb, making the Merge longer and more difficult. Experts of the crypto industry and investors have been waiting for the Merge to happen and this delay disappointed them.  

“Delaying it gives you time,” said Thomas Jay Rush to Bloomberg about Ethereum’s delay, “it looks bad to the community, but there’s nothing you can do about that.

According to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, the transition will happen by October 2022 and the chances of it being delayed to 2023 are slim, barely 10%. Developers also gain time to learn and implement the Merge, thanks to the delay of the difficulty bomb. In fact, developers have found issues and bugs during the upgrade to Ropsten and they need more time to make the final transition completely successful. 

There is less pressure for everyone involved. Since the Ethereum price has been dropping recently, the difficulty bomb might bring it up. One day at a time.