The Ethereum blockchain has successfully completed its shift away from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus following the merge of the Mainnet and the Beacon Chain.
The Merge took place on Sep.15 as the network shifted to PoS seamlessly, seeing hardware-based miners replaced by validators that stake Ether (ETH) to process transactions, add new blocks and maintain the network.
The most pertinent question in the cryptocurrency space is, what happens next? The Ethereum Foundation has always worked on a long roadmap of development milestones, and The Merge is no different.
Happy birthday beacon chain!
Here’s an updated roadmap diagram for where Ethereum protocol development is at and what’s coming in what order.
(I’m sure this is missing a lot, as all diagrams are, but it covers a lot of the important stuff!) pic.twitter.com/puWP7hwDlx
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) December 2, 2021
Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin previously outlined a five-step, gradual process that will bring the smart contract blockchain to what he described as the ‘Endgame’ of Ethereum’s development.
The end goal would see the network capable of high block frequency and block size as well as the ability to process thousands of transactions per second while remaining sufficiently trustless and censorship-resistant.
The Merge
The Merge was the first step in this five-part process, which has since been elaborated upon by a number of Ethereum developers, ecosystem participants and commentators. The key change of the Merge is the drastic reduction in power consumption, reducing Ethereum’s energy usage by 99%.
Hours before the Merge took place, Buterin quoted Ethereum researcher Justin Drake’s estimate that the event would also reduce global electricity consumption by 0.2%.
“The merge will reduce worldwide electricity consumption by 0.2%” – @drakefjustin
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 15, 2022
The second…
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