Ethereum Merge is only one month out from happening.
Ethereum recently announced an expected date for The Merge with the cryptocurrency set to make the move from PoW to PoS sometime around September 12, bringing with it a mass reduction in energy consumption.
The Merge has been a long time coming, with eager crypto enthusiasts waiting patiently for the switch to a PoS algorithm. Many will know that this consensus mechanism will be slightly faster in its first phase and more secure than any of its PoW counterparts, but in the overall picture will prove highly beneficial for the environment.
Current research shows that the mining process behind a PoW consumes an extensive amount of power-even though a PoS crypto would need three separate software’s to operate- its consumption is significantly lower.
On an annual basis Bitcoin, the most prominent PoW, uses the same amount of electrical energy as Ukraine, equivalent to 136.47 terawatt-hours (TWh).
Its carbon footprint is the same as the entirety of Colombia, emitting 76.12 mega tonnes of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) each year according to Digiconomist who says the main source of energy is pulled from fossil fuels.
Ethereum presently runs on this mechanism with a yearly usage of 78.8 TWh and a carbon footprint of 43.95 Mt CO2 but developers says this will be reduced by 99.5 per cent once the merge happens.
Speaking with NewsCop, Ethereum advocate @ultrasoundmoney commented on the upcoming Merge saying, “the electricity consumption to secure Ethereum post-merge is noise- essentially zero”.
“The consumption is roughly that of 10,000 laptops running 24/7, on the 1MW.”
Switching from the Mainnet to the Beacon Chain will essentially rid of the mining process of Ethereum according to their blog, as they shift from miners to validators.
“Mining will no longer be the means of producing valid blocks. Instead, the proof-of-stake validators assume this role and will be responsible for processing the validity of all transactions and proposing blocks.
“Instead of expending their assets in the form of computational work, they stake ether as collateral against dishonest behaviour.”
Senior Lecturer of Business Information Systems at the University of Queensland Dr Christoph Breidbach spoke to NewsCop several months ago and explained that one of the major changes is the equipment.
“Proof of Stake is, like PoW, a ‘consensus mechanisms’ for Blockchain applications that essentially fulfils the same role like PoW – but works differently from a technological standpoint – thus using fewer computational resources and, consequently, less energy,” he said.
Bitcoin has approximately one million miners around the world with each miner taking about 10 minutes to produce a Bitcoin. It’s expected the last Bitcoin will be mined in 2140- 118 years away.
Ethereum will be expending energy at an equivalent to a laptop for each node on the Beacon Chain or on an annual basis 0.01 TWh/yr, with 413,000 validators already having staked the needed 32 ETH.
According to ETH there are about 52,000 nodes, with on average eight validators per node.
Wen Merge is a community run project providing information about the progress towards Ethereum’s transition to PoS, they talked to NewsCop about the final stages.
“Today was a significant milestone, there’s a huge amount of excitement in industry,” they said.
“This next chapter for Ethereum rivals the creation of bitcoin, we think it’s that significant.”
