The eagerly-awaited ethereum value merge event is scheduled to take place on Thursday According to Ethereum Foundation Experts predict it will decrease the energy use of the blockchain by nearly 99 percent.
The update, six years in development, will shift Ethereum from a proof-of-work system to an underlying consensus mechanism that is proof-of-stake. The so-called gas costs (also known as transaction costs) will decrease as it will become better able to process transactions quicker.
Some have referred to the merger as the most significant crypto-related moment since the invention of bitcoin and ether noting that the blockchain holds thousands of trillions worth of worth. Ethereum provides the basis for many of the most prominent crypto-related apps including NFTs and smart contracts.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently voiced his support for proof-ofstake protocols via Twitter And he has stated that the aim is to reduce the energy use by 99.95 percent.
“The way to think about the merge is simply as a shift in the way transactions are validated on Ethereum,” Ari Redbord, director of government and legal issues for TRM TRM, said to Insider.
Proof of-of-work validates transactions using mining, but requires massive amounts of energy in order to accomplish this. Proof-of-stake selects validators according to their “stake” they have in the blockchain, or on how much of their token is committed to the chance to be selected as an acceptable validator.
Effectively in the near future, effectively, the ethereum proof of stake network will be split into smaller blocks of data in order to speed up processing. This will result in the so-called Ethereum 2.0 -that aims to manage more than 100,000 transactions every second. At present, Ethereum can process roughly 30 transactions per second.
“Under the new paradigm, decentralized networks can operate with lower fixed costs, and become more flexible for larger-scale solutions beyond just currency and financial applications,” Al Morris Co-founder of Web3 company Koii Network, told Insider.
Potential Risks
Experts have told Insider that the outcome of the merger can’t be guaranteed to be positive. the uncertainty is still there.
Security of transactions
Proponents of proof-of-work have cautioned that a smaller amount of holders of ether could soon be in control of a greater extent Proponents of proof-of stake claim that greater control by the investors of the network will result in more secure systems.
Redbord who specializes in monitoring illegal activity in the field of digital assets He said he’s not sure whether the security for the network will be improved by the new upgrade.
Staking questions
“One question which remains is whether the new Stake-based model will attract as many node operators, since tokens must be purchased before they can be staked as collateral, rather than simply burning energy as was normal under Proof-of-Work,” Morris said.
He argued that the requirement to stake could ultimately lead to a longer-term price stability.
Current competition
Experts warn that the Ethereum blockchain will definitely be faster and more affordable however it’s likely that transactions won’t be speedy as much as other, smaller chains.
“I think what’s interesting to examine is how alternative smart-chain blockchains are taking more market share away from Ethereum,” Santiago Portela, CEO of FITCHIN spoke to Insider. “Just look at Solana. It’s already super fast and super cheap. It’s got real user adoption. In fact, NFT sales and transactions on Solana are now starting to surpass those on Ethereum.”
Institutional adoption
The merger may be a catalyst for a wider adoption by institutions, Bank of America wrote on Friday.
Analysts at the firm said that they believe the “significant reduction” in energy usage could enable more buy-in from investors who were previously barred to invest in tokens that were based around a proof-ofwork framework.
BofA has also stated that the merger serves as a prelude for the Surge which is a planned upgrade to Ethereum that aims to increase the scalability of Ethereum and reducing gas costs.
In the end, analysts believe this event could lead to an increase in the popularity of Web3 and the Web3 ecosystem.
“Insurance companies generally invest their reserves in corporate and government debt instruments, but instruments with similar risk/rewards characteristics are currently difficult to find, or simply don’t exist, in the digital asset ecosystem. Staking on ethereum news may be the closest alternative,” BofA declared.
