{"id":13997,"date":"2022-09-07T15:11:54","date_gmt":"2022-09-07T15:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/09\/07\/how-the-merge-will-slash-ethereums-climate-pollution\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:11:56","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T15:11:56","slug":"how-the-merge-will-slash-ethereums-climate-pollution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/09\/07\/how-the-merge-will-slash-ethereums-climate-pollution\/","title":{"rendered":"How The Merge will slash Ethereum\u2019s climate pollution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/9\/6\/23339594\/ethereum-merge-energy-pollution-proof-of-stake\">https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/9\/6\/23339594\/ethereum-merge-energy-pollution-proof-of-stake<\/a><br \/>\n<code><br \/><\/br><\/code><\/p>\n<div readability=\"220.62673628214\">\n<p id=\"RMFXjf\">Ethereum just set The Merge in motion \u2014 and the stakes are huge for the planet. The Merge is arguably one of the most anticipated events yet in cryptocurrency history, when the Ethereum blockchain will switch from a disturbingly energy-hungry method of validating transactions to a new strategy that uses a fraction of the electricity as the network gobbled up before. <\/p>\n<p id=\"Tmp3Fj\">The transition is supposed to slash Ethereum\u2019s energy consumption by a whopping <a href=\"https:\/\/ethereum.org\/en\/upgrades\/merge\/\">99.95 percent<\/a>. That\u2019s a seriously big deal since, just last week, the cryptocurrency network was <a href=\"https:\/\/digiconomist.net\/ethereum-energy-consumption\">estimated<\/a> to use as much electricity annually as the country of Bangladesh. All that energy, of course, comes with a lot of carbon dioxide pollution that\u2019s exacerbating climate change. Ethereum\u2019s native token, Ether, is the world\u2019s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization after Bitcoin.<\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-right\">\n<aside id=\"BFbRXY\"><q>A new strategy that uses a fraction of the electricity <\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"AxmKPg\">How is nearly all the pollution Ethereum was previously pumping out supposed to virtually disappear? It\u2019s complicated, so let\u2019s break it down as simply as we can. <\/p>\n<p id=\"5rFDaL\"><strong>What is The Merge?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p id=\"zDVIFG\">It boils down to a dramatic change in how transactions are recorded on the Ethereum blockchain. A blockchain is a record of transactions that\u2019s maintained communally rather than by a single institution like a bank (check out <em>The Verge<\/em>\u2019s handy blockchain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/22654785\/blockchain-explained-cryptocurrency-what-is-stake-nft\">explainer here<\/a>). \u201cBlocks\u201d of transaction records are added to the chain by many different players, which is why blockchains are often described as \u201cdistributed ledgers.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"hMcUvu\">With so many players \u2014 also known as nodes \u2014 involved, blockchains need a security system to make sure no one screws with or takes over the ledger. Ethereum\u2019s old version of a security system happens to be intentionally energy-intensive, so the network is switching to a new one through The Merge. <\/p>\n<p id=\"tth1A0\"><strong>What made Ethereum so polluting in the first place?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p id=\"cIW3hr\">Energy inefficiency was built into the network from the start, thanks to that old \u201csecurity system\u201d Ethereum ran on called proof of work. With proof of work, \u201cminers\u201d validate blocks of new transactions by solving computational puzzles. This is supposed to avert double-spending, and miners earn new tokens in return. To prevent too many new tokens from flooding the market, the puzzle solving gets harder over time \u2014 requiring more energy. <\/p>\n<p id=\"u2uYmS\">The cost of solving those puzzles, in equipment and electricity bills, is meant to make it harder for any one entity to gain too much influence over the ledger. If that happened, it would defeat the purpose of having a decentralized financial system in the first place. Plus, it comes with the risk of a bully coming along and manipulating the ledger for their own gain.<\/p>\n<p id=\"BI03aE\">With proof of work, energy consumption and pollution balloon because miners can earn more tokens by adding more powerful computers to their operations. Crypto \u201cmines\u201d are essentially giant data farms filled with hardware running around the clock to solve puzzles. When miners set up shop in a new place, they typically <a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu\/research\/power-hungry-cryptominers-push-up-electricity-costs-for-locals\/\">drive up electricity bills<\/a> for nearby communities. Plus, they leave behind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0921344921005103\">e-waste<\/a> from the hardware they use to solve those puzzles.<\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-left\">\n<aside id=\"t96AZB\"><q>Energy consumption and pollution balloon<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"slPUQ7\">Besides Ethereum, the other major cryptocurrency infamous for problems associated with proof of work is Bitcoin. Bitcoin miners\u2019 search for abundant, affordable energy to power their operations has breathed new life into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2022\/feb\/18\/bitcoin-miners-revive-fossil-fuel-plant-co2-emissions-soared\">fossil fuel<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/tech\/tech-news\/bitcoin-miners-align-fossil-fuel-firms-alarming-environmentalists-n1280060\">power plants<\/a> that were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/6\/30\/23004518\/new-york-denies-air-permit-to-bitcoin-mining-power-plant\">dying<\/a> away. Those plants then spew more pollution into the air. <\/p>\n<p id=\"bx5JT8\">Policymakers are grappling with how to manage all those consequences stemming from proof of work. State legislators in New York, which became a hub for crypto mining after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2021\/6\/23\/22544367\/china-crypto-crackdown-bitcoin-mining-sichuan-ban-hydro-cryptocurrency-trading\">China cracked down on it<\/a> in 2021, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/6\/3\/23151622\/new-york-bitcoin-mining-moratorium-bill-state-senate\">passed<\/a> a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nysenate.gov\/legislation\/bills\/2021\/S6486\">moratorium<\/a> this year on cryptocurrency mining operations that use proof of work. Nationally, Democratic lawmakers have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/1\/28\/22906334\/us-lawmakers-letter-cryptocurrency-mining-bitcoin-energy\">probed<\/a> crypto mining companies about their energy use and have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/7\/16\/23220671\/bitcoin-cryptomining-democratic-lawmakers-letter-epa-energy-department\">asked federal regulators<\/a> to establish new rules for crypto mining in the US.   <\/p>\n<p id=\"BRf2xJ\">There\u2019s even a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/29\/22999715\/climate-change-bitcoin-drop-energy-hungry-software-code-proof-of-work\">campaign<\/a> called Change the Code, Not the Climate led by the nonprofits Greenpeace USA and Environmental Working Group that\u2019s pushing the Bitcoin network to follow Ethereum\u2019s move.<\/p>\n<p id=\"Q74Y3l\"><strong>Is The Merge going to fix Ethereum\u2019s environmental problems?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p id=\"u7ZtVt\">The Merge, if all goes well, is expected to shrink Ethereum\u2019s environmental footprint significantly. To leave proof of work behind, Ethereum is transitioning to a new process for validating transactions called proof of stake. This method gets rid of all that pesky puzzle solving altogether \u2014 eliminating the need for powerful hardware and massive amounts of electricity to keep the blockchain going. <\/p>\n<p id=\"QzXYba\">Instead of using enormous energy costs as a deterrent to bad behavior, proof of stake requires validators to lock up crypto tokens as collateral. That way, the validators have a stake in keeping the ledger accurate. If anyone else on the network finds that someone has added faulty blocks to the chain, the guilty party loses tokens they\u2019ve staked. In Ethereum\u2019s case, you need to stake <a href=\"https:\/\/ethereum.org\/en\/staking\/\">32 ETH<\/a> tokens to get started as a validator. With each token worth around $1,600 today \u2014 bad actors risk losing a hefty amount of cash. <\/p>\n<p id=\"Ku7xFK\">Validators will still be rewarded with new tokens for doing the job right. Staking tokens enters them into a new sort of lottery to verify blocks of transactions and receive that reward. An algorithm randomly picks which validators, among those who have staked tokens, to create the next block in the chain. To increase the odds of being the one chosen to add the block, you need more tokens \u2014 <em>not<\/em> more computing power. <\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-right\">\n<aside id=\"jPZS3H\"><q>A successful transition to proof of stake is expected to slash Ethereum\u2019s energy use by at least 99 percent<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"oRfkMg\">As a result, a successful transition to proof of stake is expected to slash Ethereum\u2019s energy use by at least 99 percent. The Ethereum Foundation put the number at roughly 99.95 percent. There\u2019s about a percent of wiggle room based on how much energy is used after The Merge by the computers still needed to store data and verify transactions. Validators will still want to keep computers running 24\/7, but they won\u2019t be using up as much juice to solve those pesky puzzles. <\/p>\n<p id=\"UjFvqc\">Overall, we\u2019re talking about serious energy savings. It\u2019s equivalent to about as much electricity as a quarter of the world\u2019s data centers use annually, according to Alex de Vries, a researcher who runs the website <a href=\"https:\/\/digiconomist.net\/\">Digiconomist<\/a> that tracks <a href=\"https:\/\/digiconomist.net\/bitcoin-energy-consumption\">Bitcoin<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/digiconomist.net\/ethereum-energy-consumption\">Ethereum<\/a> energy use. de Vries expects that dramatic drop in energy use to slash 30 to 35 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year if The Merge is successful.<\/p>\n<p id=\"BaZ2Fd\"><strong>How is this all going to go down?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p id=\"UTalTx\">In a nutshell, all the computers that run the blockchain\u2019s software need to update that software to the newest version that uses proof of stake. Of course, that\u2019s easier said than done when you\u2019ve got hundreds of thousands of nodes in the network. But we\u2019ll get back to that later.<\/p>\n<p id=\"rRpROP\">To get to this point, researchers developed a new \u201cBeacon Chain\u201d that uses proof of stake that\u2019s been running parallel to Ethereum\u2019s main proof of work blockchain. The old blockchain should ultimately merge with the Beacon Chain, getting rid of proof of work. The Merge will take place in <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.ethereum.org\/2022\/08\/24\/mainnet-merge-announcement\">two phases<\/a>, and the first one just kicked off after years of delays. The Bellatrix upgrade went live today, which will get the Beacon chain ready for the final transition in the next few weeks. In the second phase, the Paris upgrade, crypto mining for Ethereum that uses proof of work, should finally come to a stop.<\/p>\n<p id=\"uzeQGc\"><strong>What could go wrong?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p id=\"GROhri\">The big worry is that too many miners will mutiny and decide to stick with proof of work. They\u2019ve already invested in setting up their crypto mining farms, and many will likely be hard-pressed to let go of their hardware. There are a couple different ways this mutiny might play out.<\/p>\n<p id=\"WzfJYa\">If enough of them decide to forego the software update, then they could keep Ethereum\u2019s old proof of work blockchain alive. There\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/ethereumpow.org\/\">already a push<\/a> by some miners to do this. If that blockchain persists, so will the pollution it produces. How much pollution depends again on how many miners mutiny and how much value the tokens on that zombie chain, called a \u201cfork,\u201d retain. They\u2019ll essentially only be able to sustain as much mining as the value of the token allows since they have to be able to pay off their electricity bills and still turn a profit.<\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-left\">\n<aside id=\"1cA3Kp\"><q> Ways this mutiny might play out<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"EHWl8o\">Or, the miners might choose to find another, more established proof-of-work blockchain. The Ethereum network has already split in two in the past in response to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/markets\/2020\/07\/30\/coindesk-live-recap-the-dao-hack-is-still-a-mystery\/\">hack<\/a> in 2016, which created two blockchains: Ethereum and Ethereum Classic (both use proof of work). Now it looks like some Ethereum miners are already moving over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/markets\/2022\/09\/06\/ethereum-classic-hashrate-prices-surge-as-miners-prepare-for-post-merge-reality\/?utm_source=Sailthru&#038;utm_medium=email&#038;utm_campaign=First%20Mover%20Sept.%206%2C%202022&#038;utm_term=First%20Mover\">to Classic<\/a> in response to The Merge, sticking to their energy-hungry ways. <\/p>\n<p id=\"TAlukc\">There are also security risks for Ethereum if there ultimately aren\u2019t enough validators participating on the new proof of stake blockchain. \u201cIf you have very, very few validators, then it\u2019s easy to attack the network. So we want to make sure that the participation rate of hundreds of thousands of validators is close to 99 percent,\u201d says Leonardo Bautista Gomez, founder of the blockchain research group Miga Labs, who has also worked with the Ethereum Foundation to help develop the Beacon chain. <\/p>\n<p id=\"CbmIwW\">To Bautista Gomez, The Merge \u201cshows that even though it may be technically difficult to implement, we make the effort to do this because we are conscious of our environmental responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"GRNLNG\">But even if everything goes smoothly with The Merge, blockchains are still inherently inefficient, says de Vries, who also works as a data scientist for De Nederlandsche Bank. By nature of being a distributed database, data is replicated across many devices, and that <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s12599-020-00656-x\">uses more energy<\/a>. Still, de Vries acknowledges that proof of stake is orders of magnitude less wasteful than proof of work.<\/p>\n<p id=\"SQaQTb\">The Merge is tentatively expected to be done <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VitalikButerin\/status\/1564458813616295937\">by the end of the month<\/a>. Then we\u2019ll see how successful the transition was and what new challenges might have arisen.  <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><code><br \/><\/br><\/code><\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/9\/6\/23339594\/ethereum-merge-energy-pollution-proof-of-stake\">https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/9\/6\/23339594\/ethereum-merge-energy-pollution-proof-of-stake<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Ethereum just set The Merge in motion \u2014 and the stakes are huge for the planet. The Merge is arguably one of the most anticipated events yet in cryptocurrency history, when the Ethereum blockchain will switch from a disturbingly energy-hungry method of validating transactions to a new strategy that uses a fraction of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,8],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-13997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-technology","tag-science"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How The Merge will slash Ethereum\u2019s climate pollution - Science and Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/09\/07\/how-the-merge-will-slash-ethereums-climate-pollution\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How The Merge will slash Ethereum\u2019s climate pollution - Science and Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Source: Ethereum just set The Merge in motion \u2014 and the stakes are huge for the planet. 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The Merge is arguably one of the most anticipated events yet in cryptocurrency history, when the Ethereum blockchain will switch from a disturbingly energy-hungry method of validating transactions to a new strategy that uses a fraction of the [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/09\/07\/how-the-merge-will-slash-ethereums-climate-pollution\/","og_site_name":"Science and Nerds","article_published_time":"2022-09-07T15:11:54+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-09-07T15:11:56+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":628,"url":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/how-the-merge-will-slash-ethereums-climate-pollution_6318b4bb62593.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/09\/07\/how-the-merge-will-slash-ethereums-climate-pollution\/","url":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/09\/07\/how-the-merge-will-slash-ethereums-climate-pollution\/","name":"How The Merge will slash Ethereum\u2019s climate pollution - 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