Ethereum 2.0 Merge 64 New Chains Processing Thousands of Transactions Per Second

Merge as we all know is a highly anticipated upgrade to Ethereum. If all the development works go smoothly, the merge is likely to shift the major blockchain from a proof-of-work mechanism to proof-of-stake.

The process of Testing Ropsten is a “huge milestone” toward the actual Ethereum merge estimated to happen later this year sometime in August per Vitalik Buterin. The risk of further delay is not ruled out yet.

After the Merge Phase 1 Ethereum will implement the larger rollout in baby steps during 2023, with smaller shard chains to be deployed over time.

The expectation is that with 64 new chains also known as shards, the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade will see Eth2 able to process thousands of transactions per second – much more than the current Ethereum network. It hopes this will add further security and scalability to the blockchain compared to the existing Ethereum chain.

Community Reaction: 

Gas Fee Worry Continues Despite Oncoming Merge Announcement:  People will be angry when they find out that fees will still be high on Ethereum 2.0. What about fees. Ethereum is a business-based fees. Are they gonna be much lower?! That is what matters.

Did he also tell people that scaling won’t improve much and the fees won’t go down?

Supporter: Scaling and fee reduction is happening with Layer 2s (although sharding will later multiply those effects)

Critic: Layer 2s are individual, centralized solutions that you still need gas to send to. And once you move your ETH to one, it costs 2x gas to move out and to another. Committing to an L2 basically means you’re committing to ignore the rest of the Ethereum ecosystem. Not a fix.

Supporter: Once you have your ETH on a Layer 2, there are bridge solutions (such as Hop protocol) to move it to other Layer2s without needing to go back to Layer 1. Eventually everything will be on L2s, no need to ever go back to L1.

Critic: You’re hoping all of this comes together, but eventually people are going to realize that 1. Taking security off of L1 and putting it on a third party’s infrastructure bypasses the security aspect of blockchain in the first place, and 2. There are L1s that already got it right.

Supporter: Layer 2s (Optimistic and ZK rollups) inherit the full security of Layer 1. That’s the whole reason this works. This is distinct from sidechains / state channels / etc.

Onlooker Reaction to ETH Supporter:  ADA has been doing this successfully for the past year! Cardano is so undervalued compared to ETH.