What is Ethereum Merge?

Ever since humans discovered fire, their tendency has been to explore anything and everything they come across, and hence, that leads to the discovery or invention of a lot of things that help us make our life easier.

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That principle applies to every aspect of life and cryptocurrencies are no different.  People who use networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum would know how slow these networks can be at times. Hence, to remedy that, Ethereum is going to transition into a new protocol that is going to make it far better than before. 

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To achieve this, the Ethereum network will undergo something called The Ethereum Merge. In this article, we will be talking about what this Merge is, how it is going to happen and what changes it will bring for the users. So stick around to get some enlightenment.

What Is Ethereum Merge?

The Ethereum Merge is basically the merging or joining of the main Ethereum blockchain with the new Beacon Chain that has been up and running for some time now.

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The Beacon Chain is a blockchain that works on the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism which makes it a lot better than the original Ethereum network. The merging of these two chains is under process and once the process is complete, the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism of Ethereum will come to an end. 

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One of the biggest advantages of the new blockchain that we will have after the merging will be that it will consume 99.95% less energy as compared to the existing Ethereum blockchain network.

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This will be achieved as the joining of the Mainnet that is being used today and the Beacon chain will negate the need for energy-intensive mining and instead, the network would be secured using the staked ETH. The merger will ensure that the new chain will have more scalability, security as well as sustainability.

What Will Be Achieved With The Merge?

What will happen in this merge is that the whole blockchain will shift to a new system making it more efficient. The Merge is a very complicated and multi-layered process and hence, it is taking so long for it to complete.

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After the blockchain shifts to a new system, the way the transactions are processed on the network will change. The merge will reinforce the decentralized nature of the blockchain as it will prompt more and more people to use Ethereum. As the new network will require a lot less power consumption, anyone could become a validator, taking it far from anything centralized.

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What the new Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism will do is it will replace the block mining process of Proof-of-Work by using validation to keep the network functioning. Users will have to stake their ETH so that they can create a block and they will be further chosen to become a validator. Other users can attest that the block is valid and it'll be added to the network.

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With the merging, any user who has a minimum of 32 ETH can become a validator. The PoS mechanism will negate the requirement of expensive equipment and will also use a lot less energy. 

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Beacon Chain And Its Relation With The Merge

The Beacon Chain was created in December 2020 and it has run parallel to the mainnet ever since. The Beacon chain can also be called the consensus layer for now. It has over 375,000 active blockchain validators who reinforce the PoS mechanism of the network.

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The Beacon chain would also help Ethereum when it is ready for its next upgrade of shard chains. The shard chains will help the network in expanding its capacity to scale and store data. Earlier, the sharding upgrade was going to happen before the merging but due to Layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum, Optimism, etc growing so fast, it had to be pushed ahead.

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The Beacon Change is supposed to change as time goes on. The Ethereum mainnet after the merging will allow stakers to have a bigger role in the functioning of the network. The Beacon chain itself cannot handle accounts or run smart contracts, hence, after the merge, it will be able to do all that as well.

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The merging is being called a Merge as it would not lead to a fork being made that would be a different blockchain altogether from the current mainnet. After the Merge, the Ethereum Mainnet and the Beacon Chain would become one chain. The whole PoW chain would become the Ethereum PoS chain.

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An important point that you should know is that no data will be lost in this merge. All the transaction history, all your assets, and everything else will still exist on the Ethereum mainnet after the merge. So you do not need to worry about any of that.

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What Happens After The Merge?

The main goal of the Ethereum Mainnet and Beacon Chain merging is to make the Mainnet have a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. In order to accelerate the process, the blockchain developers are working to remove the features of the Mainnet that are making it slow. 

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The ability to withdraw the staked ETH would also be temporarily inhibited after the Merge is complete. Another thing to note is that the merging will not solve all the scalability issues. Although, it will help in preparing the network for Ethereum's version of shard chains.

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These shard chains would rely on the PoS mechanism of the network to become functional. The Shard Chains would spread the data load over 64 blockchains and hence provide cheaper layers for apps and rollups to store data. They will also assist the Layer 2 solutions to offer a reduced transaction fee. All these things will make the new Ethereum Mainnet more secure.

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Conclusion

The Merging of the current Ethereum Mainnet and the Beacon Chain will bring a lot of benefits to everyone from the users to the project organizations. It will increase the TPS speed of the network a great, reduce energy consumption and make the blockchain a lot more secure.

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The Ethereum Merge is only going to bring about better changes, changes that the crypto community has been waiting for, for a long time. We hope you enjoyed this article. If you need information regarding any other crypto-related topic, do check out our website.

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