What is the Ethereum Merge? – Investopedia
The Ethereum Merge is the joining of Ethereum’s Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Beacon Chain with the Ethereum Mainnet to transition the Ethereum blockchain off the legacy Proof-of-Work (PoW) system. This will result in a 99.95% reduction in Ethereum’s energy consumption, and the ability to further scale the Ethereum ecosystem. It will result in Ethereum 2.0, a new version of Ethereum.
The switch will move the entire blockchain over to new Proof-of-Stake validator nodes which require staking or locking up, 32 Ether (ETH) to join. Ether tokens will remain exactly the same for investors, and there should be no change to the operations of Ethereum-based applications. During the merge, users may not be able to transfer Ethereum-based assets.
Since inception, Ethereum has been secured with a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, requiring hardware processing power to solve complicated math equations in a competitive process to mine the next block in the Ethereum blockchain. The transition to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) will remove the need for mining nodes to compete for block rewards, and instead requires node operators to stake 32 Ether (ETH) as collateral to become network validators to earn rewards.
There are driving factors behind the move to a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, including:
The issuance of Ethereum as block rewards will also be significantly reduced. Currently, there are about 13,000 Ether mined per day. After the merge, that number will drop to about 1,600 Ether rewarded per day. This is a 90% reduction in Ether issues, slowing the inflationary growth of Ether. After years of delays, the Ethereum Merge is scheduled to go live around September 15, 2022.
To be eligible for block rewards after the Ethereum Merge, node validators will need to stake (or lock up) 32 ETH into a smart contract as collateral. This Ether will be locked up until a future upgrade to the network enables withdrawals.
While some PoS blockchains give a greater chance of rewards to users that stake a larger amount of crypto, Ethereum handles rewards with a random lottery to select who will propose a new block to be added to the blockchain. In fact, Ethereum has stated that “when validator withdrawals are enabled, stakers will be incentivized to remove their earnings/rewards (balance over 32 ETH) as these funds are otherwise not contributing to their stake weight (which maxes as 32).”
Those who don't own 32 Ether or do not wish to run a validator node but wish to stake Ether can still do so by joining a staking pool. A staking pool combines the deposits of multiple individuals to stake the required 32 ETH for an Ethereum validator node. The block rewards from that node are then shared with the staking pool in proportion to the deposited ETH per individual account. Crypto exchanges also offer a version of this, allowing users to stake small amounts in return for a fixed rewards amount.
There are several risks with the upcoming Ethereum Merge, as it is the biggest update to any cryptocurrency blockchain network to date. Here are a few of the risks of the Ethereum Merge:
With the move to PoS, network proposers will be known ahead of time, making them vulnerable to a DoS attack. For example, if a potential attacker is in line to propose one of the next blocks in the blockchain, they can attempt to DoS (a sophisticated networking attack) of the current proposer's node, causing them to lose their slot, and the transactions in that slot can be picked up by the attacker. There are solutions being worked on to make the proposer selection anonymous, but this is currently still a risk.
Staking pools have become very popular, as most investors don’t have the required 32 Ether to stake, but can join a group of others to raise the funds needed to become a validator. This could end up concentrating the number of validator nodes under the influence of centralized entities, which introduces the risk of censorship or governance takeover.
Many crypto applications have been referring to the merged and upgraded network as “ETH 2.” This has led to confusion about whether there will be a newly formed cryptocurrency called ETH 2 (there is not), and makes ETH holders susceptible to scams. Scammers may try to take advantage of this confusion and try to get users to swap out their current ETH for “ETH 2,” but in reality they would be stealing the user’s Ether.
If there are setbacks with the merge, this could cause a drop in Ether price, as well as many of the top cryptocurrencies that have built their platforms on top of the Ethereum blockchain.
Ethereum 2.0, also known as Eth2, is an upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain. Through the upgrade, Ethereum's network will be able to process more transactions at once and avoid bottlenecks.
The Beacon Chain is the Ethereum proof-of-stake blockchain network that was launched in 2020. It will become fully operational as the updated Ethereum blockchain after the merge is completed. The Beacon Chain is the controller of the Ethereum PoS network, managing the entire process of the PoS protocol and coordinating parallel chains (shards).
No. ETH 2 is not a new cryptocurrency, and ETH will remain the only Ethereum native cryptocurrency. “ETH 2” simply refers to the new Proof-of-Stake blockchain that will go live as Ethereum’s main blockchain network after the merge. There is no new cryptocurrency called ETH 2, though some crypto exchanges (such as Coinbase and Kraken) list “Ethereum 2 (ETH2)” as an asset that can be staked.
Ethereum Foundation. "The Merge."
Ethereum Foundation. "Proof-of-Stake (PoS)."
Ethereum Foundation. "How The Merge Impacts ETH Supply."
Twitter. "Vitalik Buterin, Aug. 12, 2022, 8:48 AM."
Ethereum Foundation. "Staking with Ethereum."
Ethereum Foundation. "The Great Renaming: What Happened to Eth2?"
Ethereum Foundation. "The Beacon Chain."
Kraken. "Ethereum 2.0."
Coinbase. "Ethereum 2, ETH2."
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