An Ethereum developer who’s spent the past 4.5 years on its network upgrade shares why the Merge will be the single-most important event in crypto history since the invention of bitcoin and ether

• Ben Edgington is a lead product owner at Ethereum software company, ConsenSys. 
• As a developer, he says the upgrade is like “swapping out the engine mid-flight” on a plane.
• Edgington has been working roughly 15-hour days ahead of the upgrade, which is slated for mid-September.

In an industry known for high turnover and volatility — one accustomed to both teenage tourist investors and FOMO capital allocators — Ethereum developer Ben Edgington has a different approach to crypto.

Edgington, the founder and product lead of the open-source Ethereum consensus client Teku, has been working on the blockchain’s highly anticipated upgrade, the Merge, for the past 4.5 years. For a space that’s only about 15 years old, that’s practically an eon.

From roughly 7 am to 10 pm each day, it’s “heads down” and focusing on Ethereum’s network. Edgington spends half his time working on Teku for Ethereum software company ConsenSys, and the other half on a technical book he’s writing on the smart-contract network’s series of upgrades.