The Ethereum merger is the biggest narrative of the year and is considered one of the most important events in cryptocurrency history since the birth of Bitcoin’s “genesis block.” Since the core development team announced that it will merge in mid-September, it has brought a wave of small market trends. Today I studied it again and compiled a note. Now I share it, hoping to help everyone understand.
I'm a novice, please correct me if I make any mistakes.
1. What is Ethereum Merger?
The merger means that when the Ethereum mainnet we currently use merges with the beacon chain, the merged Ethereum will change from using Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS).
The Beacon Chain was launched on December 1, 2020. It is only a blockchain used to run the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. There are no transactions, tokens, or applications on the chain. It is an "empty blockchain". After the merger, all accounts, balances, smart contracts and blockchain status of the Ethereum mainnet will not change, and proof of work (POW) will be permanently replaced by POS.
Image understanding: Ethereum can be understood as a flying airplane, and the merger means replacing the airplane with a new engine on the way (I am so afraid of crashing)
Another picture:
2. Why merge (change to POS)?
One sentence: Make Ethereum more scalable, secure and sustainable
1) Sustainability: a greener Ethereum
With the transition to PoS, Ethereum has eliminated nearly all energy consumption — about 99.95% to be exact
In PoW, participants need to use powerful and energy-consuming GPUs to solve a complex mathematical problem. Whoever solves it first will produce a block and get a reward. In order to obtain rewards, miners need to invest a lot of equipment and electricity to compete.
In PoS, the block proposer is randomly selected and there is no need to spend