⚡️The Ethereum 2.0

Ranting about the merge of the Ethereum blockchain and how it is gonna shape the WEB 3 economy.

If you are an avid follower of Web 3, you would have definitely stumbled somehow and somewhere about the Ethereum Merge aka "The Ethereum 2.0". In fact, Google had a countdown on its keyword results when one searches for 'The Ethereum merge'.

What exactly is Ethereum 2.0?

Psst, there are gonna be a lot of Web3 and blockchain terms, so would advise you to research the basic terms before reading ahead or you can read about them in my blockchain article. You could also check out Johnny Harris's video explaining crypto.

Ethereum has been using two parallel blockchains - The original one (Main-net) and Beacon Chain. So, on September 6th, the developers of Ethereum decided to merge these two parallel blockchains.

Main-net Chain: This relies on a mechanism called proof-of-work — a process involving users competing to solve cryptographic puzzles to add new blocks to the blockchain to earn ether rewards.

Beacon chain: The 2nd chain relies on proof-of-stake, in which validators put up a share of their crypto as collateral (called “staking”) for the privilege of being randomly selected to verify that a new block of data is correct.

Now, what's the merge about? The blocks that make up the Main-net will still be there, but the new, combined blockchain will just taste like Beacon Chain (proof of stake). I hope the below image clearly states the merge.

But WHYYYYY?

Proof-of-stake is much more energy efficient than proof-of-work since it limits how many users work on each block. Remember what the Beacon chain is capable of? It randomly selects the validators to verify whether the new data is correct or not.

If you have ever mined or at least tried to mine crypto, you would have definitely known the pain points of setting up a crypto mine. It eats a lot of energy. There should be 24 hours power backup. Setting up of solar panels. All of these force the miners to exit the blockchain. This could effectively break the Ethereum community and not just the community but could effectively lead to major environmental issues.

While crypto mining might sound exciting and interesting but there's been a lot of criticism among environmentalists since it affects the sustainability factor. But now, after the Ethereum merge, it is believed that the new merge will be 99.5% energy efficient.

PROs of the merge

• As I said before, the merge will be 99.5% energy efficient and Vitalik Buterin who is the co-founder of the Ethereum chain tweeted the below:

• Sustainable advancement in the Web 3 community.

• More decentralisation: more transactions and organisations will switch to Ethereum since it consumes less power.

• More DAOs apps will be built on the Ethereum blockchain.

• Reduction in the transaction/GAS fees.

• Fewer congestion results in more speed. Mobile phones and laptops will be more sufficient to mine Ethereum leading to more decentralisation and this is about to be planned in 2023. I'm super excited about this already.

• Last but not least, now that the 2 chains are merged, supply is reduced, and so demand increases. Henceforth price of ETH in the exchange increases.