September 14 may be the biggest day in the history of the internet

The Merge has been a hot topic of conversation within the Ethereum ecosystem for years. The third revision of the original Ethereum whitepaper included references to proof-of-stake in 2014. Vitalik Buterin added references to PoS, stating that both PoW and PoS can “serve as the backbone of a cryptocurrency.”

“The mechanism behind proof of work was a breakthrough in the space… an alternative approach has been proposed called proof of stake, calculating the weight of a node as being proportional to its currency holdings and not computational resources… it should be noted that both approaches can be used to serve as the backbone of a cryptocurrency.”

Further, later in the paper, Vitalik added, “in the future, it is likely that Ethereum will switch to a proof-of-stake model for security.” It has been almost nine years since the whitepaper was published, and the move to PoS is yet to materialize.

September 14, 2022

However, as many are already aware, it is now officially scheduled for September 2022. More accurately, one Ethereum developer has now calculated the project block height will be reached at 10:57 PM CEST+2 on September 14. This date may go down on record as the most important day in the history of the internet.

Finally back from vacation. Ran some computation to confirm the TTD for mainnet.

Projected Date of TTD hit: 2022-09-14 22:57:34 +0200 CEST

LGTM! Big thanks to @TMIYChao for doing the initial computation pic.twitter.com/vRCk3lXdNM

— MariusVanDerWijden (@vdWijden) August 15, 2022

The Merge is important not just because it is the culmination of years of work by the Ethereum developer community but because it cements Ethereum as one of the most critical building blocks for the future internet. It upgrades the security while lowering its energy output, thus making it a viable mechanism for companies with ESG requirements.

A PoS Ethereum silences the misguided narrative of PoW being bad for the environment while reducing Ethereum emissions by 90%….