A Google “doodle” counts down to the Ethereum meltdown, a nod to the world’s most popular search engine.

The sign of recognition comes as Ethereum’s long-awaited transition to a less energy-intensive proof-of-stake method of validating transactions is only days away: three and a half days, according to Google’s countdown.

By typing “ethereum merge” in Google’s search engine, we get a countdown timer, the difficulty rate (the number of times a miner has to compute the hashes to record a block of transactions), the hash rate (the total combined computing power used across the entire network), and a cartoon depicting two happy bears approaching with outstretched arms.

If all goes according to plan, the two bears should soon merge to create a panda, which served as the de facto mascot for Ethereum’s transition. The presence of the doodle suggests a level of anticipation for the merger felt even among the biggest tech giants.

One of the first people to announce the doodle on Twitter was an engineer who works on Google’s Web3 team.

Hey @VitalikButerin @drakefjustin and other @ethereum folks, go google “the merge” for a fun little surprise & appreciation.

Everyone is so excited for what is coming and appreciative of the work that has been going into this for years. pic.twitter.com/3bgifV6Ywn

– Sam Padilla (@theSamPadilla) September 9, 2022

“The research team ran with it and made it happen incredibly fast“, said Sam Padilla, a Web3 customer engineer at Google “More recognition should go to the teams that made this possible“.

He noted that the speed of implementation of features related to Google’s search engine does not happen often.

Sam Padilla said that the idea was raised in the last two weeks among Google employees who wanted to create “a cool Easter egg” for Ethereum’s impending transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. The idea originated in internal discussions in the company’s Web3 community.

In response to a user on Twitter, Padilla said that data is pulled in real time directly from the Ethereum network using some of the nodes hosted by Google.

A couple of us inspired the idea and the search team went to work.

The underlying data is getting pulled directly from the blockchain via some of the nodes we run.

– Sam Padilla (@theSamPadilla) September 9, 2022

The company is getting more involved with Web3, offering blockchain infrastructure services that use Google Cloud. On its Web3 product page, the company lists Nansen, Dapper Labs and Solana among its business partners. Google announced the creation of a Web3 team last May.

Most recently, Sky Mavis, creator of the NFT game Axie Infinity, announced that it has entered into an agreement with Google to use its cloud services to validate transactions on its Ronin network, an Ethereum sidechain designed for use in gaming applications.