Ethereum geared up for The Merge: Here's all you need to know

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Ethereum's much awaited software update named 'The Merge' is just a few hours away, which will shift its mechanism to proof-of-stake (PoS) from existing proof-of-work (PoW). The Merge has attracted numerous headlines, hogged ample limelight, philosophical debates about the future of Ethereum and multiple technical analysts, but one can not look past the energy efficient mechanism after the update. According to the Ethereum Foundation, PoS will cut Ethereum’s energy usage by around 99.95 per cent. The foundation is a non-profit organization that funds Ethereum ecosystem development. PoS advocates also argue that PoW mining centralizes control in the hands of those who can afford to buy fancy crypto mining rigs, called ASICs. It is also argued that PoS is a less battle-tested system than PoW.

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Sathvik Vishwanath, Co-Founder and CEO, Unocoin said that eliminating proof of work has brought the computing giant a need for new opportunities. «The Ethereum network will be 'for the people and by the people' after the merge.» «This merger can be seen as a big part of the global crypto market and will affect not only the coins and tokens based on Ethereum Blockchain, but others as well, as Ethereum is one of the biggest functioning blockchain,» he added. The exact time of the merge is not determined; it is expected somewhere around September 14 or 15, 2022 because block difficulty and issuance rate vary over time. Instead of kicking in at a specific date, the Merge is scheduled to take effect once the cumulative difficulty of all mined Ethereum blocks