As a show of support for the upcoming Ethereum Merge, tech giant Google is adding a new countdown timer to show how much time is left until the change.
If you type any version of “Ethereum Merge” or “The Merge” into a search engine, you’ll see a countdown clock with an estimate of how much time is left until the Merge based on the current difficulty, hash rate, and merge difficulty.
On the side is a cartoon of two happy pandas running toward each other with their hands outstretched. It is said that the pandas will get closer to each other as the merge date gets closer.
Related: Fake Google Translate instals crypto miners on 112,000 machines.
At the time this was written, I had a screenshot of the countdown. Google says so.
In a tweet on September 9, Google Cloud developer Sam Padilla called the timer “a fun little surprise” and a way to show appreciation for “the work that has been going into this for years.”
He said that Google’s search and labs team did the work, but he also said that he “kicked off” the idea and discussion that led to the timer being made.
Padilla wrote in the same post that the timer is directly linked to the blockchain and that the countdown is updated in real time, saying:
“Some of the nodes we run pull the underlying data straight from the blockchain.”
He also said in jest, “But you didn’t hear that from me,” implying that pandas are getting closer as the merge date gets closer.
Google is getting more and more involved in the crypto world. On May 6, the company set up a Web3 team under Google Cloud.
But Google developers aren’t the only ones who are very interested in the Merge.
Recent Google search data shows that the term “Ethereum Merge” has been searched for more than 50 times in the last 30 days, with a peak score of 100 on September 3.
Google says there are trends in searches for “Ethereum Merge.”
Related: Amazon and Google criticise Microsoft’s cloud computing adjustments.
A value of 100 means that the term is at its “highest level of popularity,” while a value of 50 means that it is “half as popular.” If the score is 0, it means that there wasn’t enough information for that day.
A recent report from CoinGecko found that Singapore is the country most interested in the upcoming Ethereum Merge, followed by Switzerland, Canada, Germany, the United States, and the Netherlands.
The rankings were made by looking at how often ten search terms were used, such as “Ethereum Merge,” “ETH Merge,” and “Ethereum PoW,” and then adding them all together to get the overall ranking.
