Ethereum Foundation developer Tim Beiko has hinted at a potential further delay to the Ethereum’s final switch to the much anticipated proof-of-stake mechanism.

The ‘Ethereum Merge’, it appears, will now take place “a few months” after June, yet another delay that pushes the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade beyond Q2 2022.

Beiko, an Ethereum miner who doesn’t believe that miners should be investing in new mining equipment right now, hinted at the delay on Wednesday morning.

“It won’t be June, but likely in the few months after. No firm date yet, but we’re definitely in the final chapter of PoW on Ethereum” he noted.

What’s the Ethereum Merge?

On 1 December 2020, Ethereum’s Beacon chain went live, introducing the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism to the Ethereum network. It marked a new milestone in the ETH ecosystem’s push to transition from energy-intensive PoW mining.

The Beacon chain is linked to the Ethereum Mainnet. It continues to use mining to protect the network.

The Merge is expected to bring together the Mainnet, Beacon and Beacon networks. Mining will cease entirely in order to make way for stakes as a means of protecting the network. The “merge” is also eyed as the predecessor of shard chains, a key milestone in the quest for scalability, security and sustainability.

This is crucial to Ethereum’s future success. Among other applications, the blockchain network anchors Decentralised Finance (DeFi), and Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs).

The merge was projected for the second quarter, according to an upgrades pageThe same.