Why Ethereum’s ‘Difficulty Bomb’ Has Been Delayed Again

Why Ethereum’s ‘Difficulty Bomb’ Has Been Delayed Again
The Ethereum network recently underwent the Arrow Glacier hard fork on Dec. 9, with the sole purpose of delaying the “difficulty bomb” to June of next year. The difficulty bomb is a mechanism to force the proof-of-work network to stop producing blocks, making mining unprofitable and disincentivizing miners from keeping the chain alive after the network merges to proof-of-stake.Ethereum core developers have made significant progress toward the Merge, with client interoperability and a functioning developer network, Amorpha. However, more time is needed to deliver the mainnet level change to proof-of-stake.While this marks the fourth time that the difficulty bomb has…