Finally, the much anticipated Ethereum Merge has taken at block 15537393 today around 06:42:42 UTC. Now, the Ethereum network has completed its transition from the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism to the Proof-of-Stake. The transition manifested after the Merging of the Ethereum mainnet execution layer and the Beacon chain’s consensus layer at the terminal total difficulty of 58750000000000000000000.
Upon the conclusion of the Ethereum Merge, the price of ETH witnessed a minimal surge. As of press time, ETH traded at $1,635. One of the prominent co-founders of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, swiftly took to his Twitter page to confirm the success of the Merge. Vitalik Buterin expressed gratitude to those who contributed to the success of the laudable feat. He said the success of the Merge is a big moment for the Ethereum Ecosystem.
Furthermore, the success of the transition has received wider positive remarks in the cryptocurrency space. Prominent stakeholders in the industry have submitted their expectations regarding the Ethereum Merge. Currently, there is a stern focus on the purported reduction of energy consumption by the Ethereum blockchain. Prior to the Merge, the Ethereum Foundation said the transition would effect a drastic reduction of about 99.95% in energy consumption.
With the conclusion of the Ethereum Merge, other stages on the Ethereum technical roadmap will come up thereafter. These stages are Surge, Verge, Purge, and Splurge. As revealed, the Surge will enhance scalability for rollups via sharding. Also, the Verge will attain statelessness through Verkle trees. The Purge, on the other hand, will remove existing data and technical debt. Lastly, the Splurge will include a host of future upgrades. Accordingly, these stages will come up at a certain block height to complement one another.
Notable side notes about the Ethereum Merge
As a prominent occurrence in the cryptocurrency space, the development has attracted a lot of attention so far. Numerous organizations have altered some of their services to avoid glitches during the transition. While some have modified the system to cope with the demands of the Ethereum Merge.
Despite having a huge expectation on a positive note, the transition to the PoS consensus mechanism has faced opposition from a part of the cryptocurrency sphere. This part is majorly miners under a group known as ETH Core. This group of miners disclosed that they would carry out a hard fork within 24 hours after the Merge.
Meanwhile, other Miners are exploring new options for mineable coins. Recently, Hive indicated its plan to explore other Mineable coins after the completion of the Ethereum Merge. Nevertheless, the Merge will deal a huge blow to miners, for instance, Hive reported that Ethereum Mining has been more profitable than Bitcoin in recent times.
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