Comment by olouv

This is not exact. The merge is definitely being prioritized and the current target is Q4’21 / Q1’22. Developers have chosen to perform an early merge by using the ETH2 consensus layer to validate ETH1 blocks, it’s a pretty straightforward process were both ETH1 and ETH2 clients co-exists with minimal changes. There is already a running testnet. More info https://blog.ethereum.org/2021/01/20/the-state-of-eth2-janua...