Breaking: Historic day for crypto as Ethereum Merge to proof-of-stake occurs

The Ethereum proof-of-stake consensus mechanism will cut energy consumption by a massive 99.95% compared to the proof-of-work system.

The Ethereum Merge has officially taken place, marking the full transition of the network to proof-of-stake (PoS). 

On Sept. 15 at 06:42:42 UTC at block 15537393, the long-awaited Merge saw the merging of the Ethereum mainnet execution layer and the Beacon Chain’s consensus layer at the Terminal Total Difficulty of 58750000000000000000000, meaning the network will no longer rely on a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism.

Ethereum (ETH) price gets a slight pump following the Merge in hourly metrics, currently trading at around $1,635, according to data from TradingView.

The Ethereum Foundation said the Merge will make the Ethereum network about 99.95% more energy efficient and will set the stage for future scaling solutions, including sharding.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin celebrated the Merge with a tweet moments after the historical transition happened:

And we finalized!

Happy merge all. This is a big moment for the Ethereum ecosystem. Everyone who helped make the merge happen should feel very proud today.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 15, 2022

Speaking to Cointelegraph, StarkWare president and co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson that “the immediate importance of the Merge is the dramatic effect on energy consumption.”

Ben-Sasson said it also marks “the first step in a process that will lead to exceedingly widespread adoption of Ethereum,” stating:

“It starts a chain reaction of changes. The end result will be the very broad use of Ethereum’s computing power, and the general population using blockchain-based apps in many different areas of life.”

The Merge has come on the back of several years of hard work from the Ethereum Foundation.

.@VitalikButerin claims that #Ethereum will be able to to process “100,000 transactions per second”, following the completion of 5 key phases:

• The Merge
• The Surge
• The Verge
• The Purge
• The Splurge

A quick breakdown of what each stage means for $ETH. pic.twitter.com/FnaWww8mHZ

— Miles Deutscher (@milesdeutscher) July 22, 2022

Businesses that issue Ethereum-based exchange-traded products (ETPs) have been busy making their own adjustments about the Merge. Bradley Duke, CEO of the European crypto ETP issuer ETC Group, explained to Cointelegraph that the company has prepared a “forked version” of their ETH-based ETP in case there’s significant support for a PoW fork after the Merge.

“If enough people get behind a fork for whatever reason, we feel the free market will decide on what should live and what should not,” Duke added.

Related: It’s on! Where to catch the Ethereum Merge live

With the Merge complete, the “Surge,” “Verge,” “Purge” and “Splurge” are the final stages left on the Ethereum technical roadmap.

The Surge will increase scalability for rollups through sharding, the Verge will achieve statelessness through Verkle trees, the Purge will eliminate historical data and technical debt, and the Splurge will involve a number of small miscellaneous upgrades.

One of the biggest transitions in the history of blockchain didn’t go without opposition. ETHW Core, a group representing proof-of-work miners, announced that they will to conduct a hard fork within 24 hours after the Merge

Renowned designer Beeple celebrated the Merge with a sci-fi illustration:

THE MERGE pic.twitter.com/7tdfNZiuuv

— beeple (@beeple) September 15, 2022

The Ethereum Merge has officially taken place at block 15537393 on Thursday at 06:42:42 UTC, transitioning the network from PoW to PoS.