It Finally Happened – The Merge – Ethereum

In an attempt to become faster and more energy-efficient, the world's second most important blockchain changed its consensus mechanism from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake on 15 September.

What does this mean? Previously, the Ethereum network ran on a blockchain that used Proof of Work (PoW) as its consensus mechanism (Ethereum Mainnet). To validate and generate the blocks in the blockchain, PoW requires nodes (miners) to solve a complex task using mining hardware and computing power to run the network. The fastest node receives a reward.

With the Merge, the old PoW blockchain has now been merged with the new beacon chain. The new beacon chain no longer uses the consensus mechanism PoW and instead relies on Proof of Stake (PoS).