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Ethereum researchers and core developers met in person to work on the transition to Proof-of-Stake. This upgrade, also known as “The Merge”, will reduce the energy consumption of the network by 99.8%.
Community response: Eip1559 didn’t solve anything. In retrospect, the gas prices and network congestion has increased. What makes you think ‘The Merge’ is going to appeal to public and help with newbie user adoption?
What happens if the potential loss from the stake is less than the gain from a put option on Ether? Could that result in malicious behaviour undermining the PoS system?
The Ethereum website about Merge: “Eventually the current Ethereum Mainnet will “merge” with the beacon chain proof-of-stake system. This will mark the end of proof-of-work for Ethereum, and the full transition to proof-of-stake. This is planned to precede the roll out of shard chains. We formerly referred to this as “the docking.”
For clarity, Initially, the Beacon Chain shipped separately from Mainnet. The current Ethereum Mainnet continues to be secured by PoW (Proof of Work). The Beacon Chain runs parallel using Proof of Stake. The merge happens when the Mainnet and Beacon come together.
When ready, Ethereum Mainnet will “merge” with the Beacon Chain, thus becoming its own shard which makes use of Proof-of-Stake instead of Proof of Work. Mainnet will provide for the ability to run smart contracts into the proof-of-stake system. It will also carry with it the full history and current state of Ethereum to provide for a smooth transition for all ETH holders and users.
The Merge is expected to be a more sustainable, eco-friendly Ethereum. Further, when this happens Ethereum will be able to achieve the full scale, security and sustainability outlined in its ETH2 Vision.
The goal of merge is to expedite the transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. Developers are focusing their efforts on this transition and they are minimizing additional features which might delay this goal.
After the Merge, there will be some post-merge Clean Up upgrade to deal with the ability to withdraw staked ETH. This is needed because the ability to withdraw staked ETH should wait a bit long after the merge is complete. A post-merge “cleanup” upgrade to address these features will happen the sooner the merge is completed. The Eth2 upgrades are all somewhat interrelated.
After the merge stakers will be assigned to validate the Ethereum Mainnet. After the merge miners will not be mining anymore. And, so, miners will be investing their earnings into staking in the new proof-of-stake system.
