One of the most anticipated crypto events is the Ethereum merge and shift to Ethereum staking to validate transactions.
Ethereum's PoS shift is essential in reducing the massive computing resources that PoW is infamous for using to process crypto transactions.
Ethereum merge date
On September 15 2022, Ethereum became a proof of stake blockchain.
The news was shared by Vitalik Buterin, who took to Twitter to thank the Ethereum community for the network's successful transition to PoS.
Core Ethereum developer Tim Beiko also took to Twitter to share the news of Ethereum's transition to the PoS consensus.
Ethereum merge expectations
Users expected that the merge may drastically lower gas fee prices, allowing them to manouver the Ethereum network without paying exorbitant fees.
However, according to DeFi researcher Vivek Raman, the merge will not affect the prices of Ethereum gas as it will only impact its functioning mechanism, helping the blockchain transform to PoS consensus.
Alongside this, ETH holders are speculating about the impact of the Ethereum Triple Halving on the price.
What is the Ethereum merge?
The Ethereum merge will see the combination of the current Ethereum blockchain with the new Beacon Chain as part of the overall network upgrade.
The Beacon Chain supports staking and will mark the shift away from mining and proof-of-work.
Putting it more bluntly, Ethereum mining will no longer exist. It will all run through Ethereum staking.
However, as Ethereum states, this will not be Ethereum 2.0 in a new cryptocurrency sense. The history from the original mainnet will remain, as explained:
No history is lost. As Mainnet gets merged with the Beacon Chain, it will also merge the entire transactional history of Ethereum. You don't need to do anything. Your funds are safe.
This won't be the final update to this next stage of Ethereum. Sharding and other updates will continue to roll out.
Ethereum hard fork
A faction of the ETH community is demanding an ETH hard fork, which recommends forking the blockchain to retain its PoW nature.
The idea was first introduced by Bitcoin miner Chandler Guo, which was later backed by the founder of cryptocurrency Tron Justin Sun.
However, Vitalik Buterin alongside other ETH devs has dismissed any such plans to fork the Ethereum blockchain, adding that they will continue to move ahead with the scheduled merge update.
For more articles like this, take a look at our Planet Crypto page.