What The Ethereum Merge Is And Why It Matters

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The long-awaited Ethereum Merge is happening next week, and it's one of the most important days in cryptocurrency history. Arcane as it sounds, the Merge matters whether or not you're a blockchain believer or a crypto critic. If it's successful, the process will lower ethereum's massive electricity requirements by over 99%.

That is of huge consequence. Skeptics of cryptocurrency typically argue that coins like bitcoin and ether are useless, and that they consume enormous amounts of electricity. The first point is polarizing and subjective, but the second is unequivocally true. In an era when more people than ever view climate change mitigation as society's highest priority, the carbon emissions of bitcoin and ethereum are too conspicuous to ignore.

In the Merge, ethereum will adopt a system known as proof of stake, which has been planned since 2014, before the blockchain's creation. Because of its technical complexity, and the increasingly large amount of money at risk, it has been delayed multiple times. The Merge is part of what in the past was called "ether 2.0," a series of upgrades that reshape the blockchain's foundations.

"We've been working on proof of stake for about seven years now," ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin said at the Eth Shanghai conference in March, "but finally all of that work is coming together."

The Ethereum Merge is scheduled to occur between Sept. 13 and Sept. 15. [...]

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