 Ethereum Merge 101 Ethereum is switching from proof of work to proof of stake What does that mean? Staking not mining will validate blocks after the merge the Ethereum Foundation pens the following validators replace miners in proof of stake validators act like miners but stake ETH as collateral against dishonesty if the validator misbehaves This stake ETH will be destroyed Slashing encourages honest and active network security without demanding many resources It is more eco-friendly Mega computers verify blocks in POW blockchains like Bitcoin and for a bit longer Ethereum on some POS chains anyone with laptop bandwidth can validate this greatly reduces energy use POW consumes as much energy as Finland in a year proof of stake Proof of stake will make validating easier for more people and organizations Staking will decentralize the network increase nodes and increase blockchain security Set up a validator node with simplified operations instead of buying expensive mining equipment Ethereum the second largest blockchain has more traffic than current POS chains Ethereum has approximately 400,000 validator nodes and counting while these other chains have 101,000 each node secures the network meaning 400,000 computers verify transactions 24-7 This is economic security Reduced gas fees and scalability the merges biggest change is lower gas fees Shard chains will enable 10,000 X more transactions per second on the chain Ethereum will boost network transaction speeds from 10 to 100,000 TPS If this wasn't fast enough the merge sets the network up to scale to 1 mTPS in a couple of years This will down gas fees to pennies making Ethereum more accessible to crypto news mid-flight rocket repair Ethereum has a big market cap and switching to proof of stake on a network with billions in TVL is difficult Ethereum verifies hundreds of thousands of blocks daily The crypto sector doesn't want to lose millions due to a programming bug before the merge integration took years due to network load Fixing a rocket mid-flight is an analogy The rocket launched years ago and is out of orbit, but we need to change the engine All the preparation is to make the flight go smoothly so passengers won't notice the engine transition The network is powered by a combustion engine POW, but it's practically dead now We want to solarize the engine So to ensure a smooth integration we must take all precaution to avoid disaster Ethereum developers have started releasing testnet merges to uncover problems that could impede the transition We'll see what happens Share your opinions. Thanks for watching