The Merge is coming, a new opportunity for Ethereum expansion ?
First: Reduce the environmental impact of the blockchain. 🌱
A common complaint about blockchain is the energy consumption required by the Proof-of-work protocol, even more in the actual environmental situation we are globally facing.
The merge is the “event” when Ethereum will switch from Proof-of-work to Proof-of-stake protocol. This new protocol will reduce by 99.95% the energy consumption while keeping the same level of security !
The environmental impact won’t be anymore a good excuse 💚
Second: Open the door for sharding and scalability. ↗️
Actually, Ethereum is facing limitations on the number of transactions it can manage every day (1+ million).
What has been identified as the Blockchain Trilemma is that it’s actually impossible to scale the network without compromising security or decentralization.
Security. Decentralization. Scalability. Three of cryptocurrency’s pillars that all seem to constantly strive to co-exist but struggle to live in harmony.
Ledger
Only Layer 2 solutions actually provide these scalability capabilities, but it comes with several new constraints.
If the merge is not a technical prerequisite for sharding, sharding is now on the roadmap right after the merge, and will be part of the Ethereum mainnet.
The highway for scalability is there !
🛟 If you want to understand when you read blockchain-related articles, you can refer to my simple glossary.
If you want to learn more about the merge (spoiler, it’s a little bit technical for newbies): https://ethereum.org/en/upgrades/merge/
If you want to learn more about Ethereum’s energy consumption: https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption/
If you want to learn more about Ethereum sharding: https://ethereum.org/en/upgrades/sharding/
If you want to understand the Proof-of-stake protocol : https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/consensus-mechanisms/pos
