The second most popular cryptocurrency in the world after Bitcoin, Ethereum has completed a major update that affects its internal operation more than external, as reported by its co-founder. Vitalik Buterin On twitter. In addition, it is an old desire of this cryptocurrency since The Ethereum Foundation has been working on these developments since 2016.
It is about the change of PoW protocol (Proof-of-Work or Proof of Work) to the PoS protocol (Proof-of-Stake or proof of participation). A process that receives the name of The Merge.
Users and investors will notice practically nothing in the use of Ethereum, since the changes affect miners above all. An update that has goal to convert miners as validatorsbeing able to verify the transactions after the payment of 32 Ethereum to access the block and transaction validation software.
With this change of protocol, it will be possible to process thousands of transactions per second, while remaining sufficiently reliable and resistant to censorship. In addition, in this new stage of Ethereum – which houses some 3,500 active decentralized applications and handles billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies – mining will no longer serve as a means of producing new blocks.
This cryptocurrency also It will improve efficiency and consumption. Since the network will use 99.95% less energy than when using the old PoW protocol, using a significant amount of the network’s native token, ether, placed in special wallets called staking wallets.
Ether fell 1.2% to $1,584 after the merger. While the token has grown more than fivefold since 2021, outperforming bitcoin by a wide margin, in part because of optimism about the process of The Merge.
Another advantage of this update has to do with the graphics cards. Highly appreciated by cryptocurrency miners, their use is very useful for mining them. One aspect that has led to a strong increase in demand for GPUs, thereby reducing the available stock and therefore an increase in prices. What has made access conditions tougher for users looking for, for example, graphics cards for games.
With this new protocol, miners do not need to buy or use graphics cards since it is about a protocol that does not allow mining. This will help reduce the price of these cards.
It should be noted that different cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase Global Inc, suspended Ethereum-related deposits and withdrawals at the time of the software update.
