The Ethereum [ETH] network has gained attention in the cryptocurrency community as a result of the Merge. The developers have put a tremendous amount of effort into the background work as the community gets ready to switch to Proof-of-Stake [PoS]. For a while now, the ETH community has been eagerly awaiting the Merge. However, the community might be experiencing yet another development as a result of this network-wide upgrade.
Prior to the Merge, those operating nodes on the blockchain have been asked by ETH developer Vitalik Buterin to upgrade their clients.
Buterin urged individuals operating Ethereum nodes to upgrade their clients to meet the necessary requirements even before the Merge takes place in a tweet on Monday.
The co-founder of the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency stated that even though the Beacon Chain hard fork would happen on September 6, the Merge would take place between September 10 and September 20, thus all nodes should have their clients updated before the Merge to guarantee a seamless transition.
A node is a computer network that runs the client software, whereas a client is a program necessary to allow Ethereum nodes to read blocks on the ETH blockchain and smart contracts.
The Merge’s first stage, the Bellatrix update, is slated to be live on September 6 at 11:34:47 UTC.
In a blog post, last week, the ETH foundation stated,
“Following years of hard work, Ethereum’s proof-of-stake upgrade is finally here! The successful upgrade of all public testnets is now complete, and The Merge has been scheduled for the Ethereum mainnet.”
The much-awaited transition from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus has numerous good effects on the network, including a 99.95% reduction in energy consumption, which has been of particular interest to many ETH supporters like Mark Cuban.
Here’s how Ethereum merge can change the idea of decentralization
The system will be negatively destabilized by the upcoming merge. ETH recently said that between September 6 and September 20, 2022, it will switch from “proof-of-work” (PoW) to “proof-of-stake” (PoS). This transition is known as a ‘merge”.
There will be significant reverberations in the area after the merge. The market value of mining Ethereum (Eth) is projected to be $19 billion, and merge is anticipated to completely shut down the industry.
Although there is a lot of excitement surrounding it, blockchain activists are worried about the occasion. According to them, merge based on PoS will put an end to “decentralization of network” and eventually result in centralization.
Entities with more tokens are given precedence over those with fewer tokens under the PoS mechanism. Larger investors have bigger profit margins, thus practically speaking, they would keep their coins to increase the manufacturing capacity. A bigger stakeholder will therefore develop more quickly than a smaller one. It would soon become unaffordable to participate in the mining business, driving away small partners and promoting centralization.
However, at the time of writing, Ethereum (ETH) was priced at $1,594.70 with a daily rise of 0.36%.