Will September 14 be the most important day on the Internet? Next September 14 could be a day marking the history of the internet. Indeed, The Merge is a subject that is not new in the Ethereum ecosystem. The third version of the Ethereum whitepaper already presented the PoS (Proof of Stake) protocol as early as 2014.
The big change expected from September 14
It is through the third version of the Ethereum whitepaper that Vitalik Buterin rightly noted that both Pos and PoW (Proof of Work) can be useful for the future of the cryptocurrency industry:
"The mechanism behind PoW was an exceptional discovery and yet an alternative called Proof of Stake allows the size of nodes to be calculated as being proportional to the value of its cryptocurrency and not as computational resources. It should therefore be noted that both approaches can be used to build a crypto-currency."
Later, in this same 2014 whitepaper, Vitalik Buterin added that in the future Ethereum would probably change its protocol to use PoS for security reasons. It has been 9 years now and this reality is about to come true.
As many of you may be aware, September is the scheduled month for The Merge. A developer of the Ethereum project has calculated that the block height should be reached on September 14 at 22:57 CEST +2. This could be one of the most important dates in internet history.
Indeed, The Merge is not only important because it is the result of hard work over 9 years of development, but also because it will transform Ethereum into a pillar for the future of the internet.
This update will improve security while reducing the energy cost of calculations while making the blockchain compatible for companies wishing to use it with ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) conditions.
A beneficial update
Major cryptocurrencies have often received many criticisms for their polluting side because mining consumes a lot of energy and therefore requires many resources to operate. Switching from PoW to PoS will be able to reduce energy consumption by at least 90%.
Ethereum's current inflation is 4.3% and is expected to drop to 0.4% after the Merge, whereas traditional currencies have seen record highs in the past 40 years in recent months.
With The Merge less than a month away, many experts and prominent players in the cryptocurrency industry are speaking out about it. It should also be taken into account that during the month of July Ethereum did better than Bitcoin in terms of performance with an increase of 62%. This upcoming update is a technical gem in the history of the internet.
There are more than 500,000 ERC20 tokens according to on-chain on the Ethereum blockchain, which means that half a million projects depend on the ETH ecosystem for all of their transactions. Additionally, there are around 4,000 dApps as well as 500,000 active addresses on Ethereum.
The merger with the Beacon Chain
Thus, from September 14 the entire Ethereum blockchain will merge with the Beacon Chain (PoS) changing its mechanism all without interruption during the update since the network will continue to produce new blocks.
Many web 2.0 servers and applications need to be restarted or undergo maintenance when significant updates occur. In the case of Ethereum, no pause: The Merge will take place while the network continues to evolve in real-time.
Once the merger is successful, the new version of Ethereum will have undergone the so-called triple halving effect. Just as Bitcoin undergoes a halving approximately every 4 years, halving the number of Bitcoins generated. Very often this marks the start of a new rise for the cryptocurrency concerned.
As a result, once Ethereum uses the PoS protocol, there will be 90% less ETH issued, which is equivalent to the triple halving in one block. For example with PoW, Ethereum is able to issue an average of 13,000 ETH per day, with PoS it will increase to 1600 ETH per day.
Unlike Bitcoin which is often thought of as virtual gold and a resource to be stored, Ethereum is a decentralized virtual computer known as the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). This enables automated and programmable smart contracts offering possibilities not possible for web 2.0 applications.
The future of the internet
Web3 is now a term that comes up frequently in the IT field, but it needs to be adopted more by the general public. Although Ethereum has been slow to release its development-stifling The Merge update, once the Beacon Chain is in place on the mainnet, future improvements will be much easier.
This will notably allow new projects to join the ETH blockchain without having to worry about whether The Merge will work or not since it will already be in place.
So, if Web3 in the future is a more integrated element in our lives and spreads around the world, then there is a good chance that Ethereum will be a major component of it. Especially because layer 2 solutions will facilitate transactions and Ethereum may be one of the major blockchains for Web3.
Therefore, September 14, 2022, could go down in internet history as the date marking the beginning of Web3. On the other hand, if The Merge were to fail, this could have critical repercussions on its development. All that remains is to look forward to this date and find out what the future holds.
In addition to Web3, the Metaverse, intimately linked to this technological development, is increasingly talked about. Day after day, we discover new possibilities for using it both on the internet and adapting it to uses for many industries such as the world of fashion.
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