On September 15th, 2022, the long-awaited ETH
Merge has finally occurred, proclaimed to be “the most
significant upgrade in the history of Ethereum”, which has
determined a shift of Ethereum blockchain from a proof-of-work
(PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.
PoW, the original blockchain consensus mechanism popularized by
the advent of Bitcoin, is known to deploy large amounts of energy,
as virtual miners around the world race to solve a complex
cryptographic problem to secure the network and win the right to
update the blockchain. Conversely, PoS consensus mechanism does not
require high levels of computational power and is 99.9% less energy
intensive than PoW. In addition, PoS is faster, more scalable, and
can process more transactions per second than PoW. PoS
“validators”, like PoW miners, are called upon to
secure the network by temporarily “staking” a certain
amount of cryptocurrency (32 ETH) in exchange for a reward.
Provided, therefore, that
