Google has added a countdown timer to mark the time until the upgrade as a sign that it supports for the Ethereum Merge.
Any variation of “Ethereum Merge”, or “The Merge”, will bring up a countdown ticker with estimated time until the Merge, based on current difficulty, hashrate, and merge difficulty.
To the side, you’ll see a cartoon showing two happy pandas running towards each other with their outstretched arms. This is supposed to get closer as the Merge date gets nearer.
Here is a screenshot of the countdown as it was at the time this article was written. Source: Google
In a Friday tweet , Sam Padilla, a Google Cloud developer, said the timer was “a funny little surprise” and a way for them to express their appreciation for “the years of work that went into this.”
Although he said that the work was completed by Google’s search & labs team, he noted that he “kickstarted” the discussion and idea that eventually led to the implementation of the timer.
Padilla also explained that the timer is directly linked to the blockchain. This updates the countdown in realtime.
“The underlying data is being pulled directly from the Blockchain via some of our nodes.”
He also suggested that pandas would be closer to the Merge date, but he made a tongue in cheek statement saying, “But you didn’t hear that from us.”
Keep your eyes open. https://t.co/jETQpNydLG#TheMerge#EDCON2021 pic.twitter.com/qSai2Di127
— Hsiao-Wei Wang (@icebearhww)
August 29, 2021
Google is becoming more involved in crypto, with the company creating a HTML3 team under Google Cloud.
Google developers aren’t the only ones who are interested in the Merge.
Recent Google search data revealed that searches for “Ethereum Merge”, generated scores above 50 many times in the past 30 days. This reached a maximum of 100 on September 3.
Search trends for the term “Ethereum Merge” Source: Google
A 100 value is considered “peak popularity” for the term, while 50 is considered “half-popular.” A score of 0 indicates that there wasn’t enough data.
Related: Ethereum ready to The Merge after last shadow fork is successfully completed
A CoinGecko report has found that Singapore is the country most interested in the upcoming Ethereum Merge. This was followed by Switzerland, Canada, Germany and the United States.
Rankings were created by analyzing the frequency and combinations of ten search terms including Ethereum Merge, “ETH Merge”, and “Ethereum poW” to determine the overall ranking.
