Environmental ETH naysayers can take a break — by some estimates, Ethereum's switch to Proof-of-Stake is equivalent to Finland shutting down its entire power grid.
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Editor's Note: Merge = Success
Molly Jane Zuckerman writes...
Last night, while half the world was asleep — Ethereum merged.
The Merge took place with little issue: only 4% of validators were initially lost, and all "worst-case scenarios" with billions of ETH printed by mistake were avoided.
Now what?
As we've written many times in many articles about The Merge, nothing will change for regular ETH holders. The Merge does not bring faster transaction times, nor lower gas fees.
Instead, the Ethereum community is now looking to the future when even more upgrades will take place on the network.
But until then, environmental ETH naysayers can take a break — by some estimates, Ethereum's switch to Proof-of-Stake is equivalent to Finland shutting down its entire power grid.
Happy Merge day!
Ethereum completes The Merge! 🔥
It's happened. Ethereum is no longer based on Proof-of-Work. Early on Thursday morning, the network successfully switched to a Proof-of-Stake blockchain. This ambitious upgrade has been years in the making — and is set to reduce energy consumption by 99.95%. Miners are no longer responsible for verifying transactions and adding them to the blockchain. There were jubilant scenes in viewing parties as pandas emerged in code to show that PoS was activated. Software engineers watching closely at an Ethereum Foundation viewing party said it went "amazing" and "perfectly" as few blocks were being missed. But in a sign that The Merge had already been priced in, ETH's price was flat after it was completed.
The end of the beginning 🚨
Vitalik Buterin described The Merge as a "big moment" for the Ethereum ecosystem — but during a viewing party, he warned that the hard work begins now. Striking a cautious note, Ethereum's co-founder said: "There's still lots of steps to go. We still have to scale, we still have to fix privacy, we have to make the thing actually secure for regular users. We have to work hard and do our part to make all of these other things happen as well." Buterin went on to say that The Merge "symbolizes the difference between early-stage Ethereum and the Ethereum we've always wanted." Moving to PoS — compared with changing a car's engine while it was traveling at high speed — was beset by delays and pushed back several years.
Craig Wright 'stomped' on hard drive 👀
Craig Wright "stomped on the hard drive" that contained information he needed to access Satoshi Nakamoto's private keys. The entrepreneur made the revelation on the third day of his court case against Hodlonaut in Norway. Dr. Wright and his legal team argue that it is "incredibly difficult" for him to provide further cryptographic proof that he is Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator. In footage of the hearing, provided courtesy of Bitcoin Magazine, he argued that identity is not related to keys — and destroying the hard drive was crucial to ensure that he wouldn't be forced to cryptographically prove he was Satoshi. He also argued Bitcoin is not encrypted, telling the judge: "I want it known that these lies, these slanderous accusations about how law enforcement can't take Bitcoin from criminals are wrong."
South Korea may void Do Kwon's passport 🇰🇷
South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs is attempting to void Do Kwon's passport, according to local media. It comes after an arrest warrant for the embattled Terra co-founder, as well as five others, was issued. Kwon is believed to be in Singapore, and he has been charged with violating the Capital Markets Act. Countless investors collectively lost billions of dollars when LUNA and UST collapsed, with contagion spreading through the crypto markets. According to the Financial Times, Singapore is not on South Korea's list of bilateral extradition treaties — and officials are also considering co-operating with Interpol. If Kwon was placed on the red notice, he would face "serious difficulties" in traveling outside of Singapore.
