Once again, the difficulty bomb does not set the Merge’s date in stone. Beacon Chain developers and the client teams use the difficulty bomb to keep them on track. If they have to delay the bomb again it will eat at time they could be spending on the transition to proof-of-stake. However, if the bomb is set too far away it loses its utility of disincentivizing the proof-of-work chain. Thus, the projected date represents the best data point we can use to estimate when the developers feel they will be ready to deploy the necessary code for the Merge.
Ethereum’s ‘Difficulty Bomb’ Timing Hints at an Early Summer Merge
