It happened, and we survived.
But nothing feels different. Eth is not at 10K. I thought the merge was going to save us?!?!?!
The merge has been on Ethereum's roadmap, and the goal was to bring ETH from a Proof of Work Model, to a Proof of Stake Model, with zero interruptions to the network.
WHAT DID THE MERGE DO?
Increase Sustainability by lowering energy consumption by 99.5%
Increase Network Security
Set the Stage for increased scalability
Although the Term Eth 2 is no longer used, this is still my favorite visual to describe what took place during the merge
During the merge the existing execution layer of Ethereum (what was known as ETH Mainnet), merged with its new proof-of-stake consensus layer, the Beacon Chain.
The beacon chain has been around since December 2020, running parallel to ETH, reaching consensus on its own by validating account validators and their balances. (IE, this was highly tested & proven).
Now, instead of miners validating each block( Proof of Work ), the (Proof-of-Steak) mechanics used by the beacon chain are responsible for processing the validity of all transactions and proposing blocks for ETH!
What Did the Merge Not Do?
Require any user action
Pause ETH activity
Lower Gas Fees
Create noticeably faster txns
Allow for Staking Withdrawals
Get rid of onchain history
Effect ETH balance
This is extremely exciting, besides having a great rebuttle for all your crypto-hating friends who's only argument was "its sooooo bad for the environment" (which is a whole other conversation), successfully shipping the merge is a huge feat.
This will go down in history for Open- Source Development, and hopefully, fuel even more innovation.
So what is next?
The Surge, The Verge, The Purge, & The Splurge (which according to a tweet from Vitalik, will be happening simultaneously)
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