Ethereum’s long-awaited transition from proof of work to proof of stake is finally upon us. The event, also known as the merge, occurred at 2:45 am EST on September 15, opening a brand new chapter in the history of the industry’s second-largest cryptocurrency.
Ethereum developers, experts, and the broader community members have been flocking in numbers to Twitter to share their thoughts on the event, with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin being among the first to express his gratitude to all who helped make the merge a success.
“Happy merge all. This is a big moment for the Ethereum ecosystem. Everyone who helped make the merge happen should feel very proud today,” wrote Buterin.
“Can’t say enough about all of the builders, researchers, coordinators, and more that made this all happen. It’s an absolutely incredible feat to transition a globally used blockchain to PoS without most end users even noticing or having to do anything,” he added.
Joe Lubin, the CEO of Ethereum software company ConsenSys, also joined the party to congratulate the community. ConsenSys is one of 22 strategic investors in Decrypt.
“Epoch’s are finalizing. Proof of Stake Ethereum is here! Congratulations to the entire community,” said Lubin.
Eli Ben-Sasson, the co-founder and president of StarkWare, compared the roll-out of the merge to watching Webb Telescope unfold.
“Watching The merge unfold be like watching Webb Telescope unfold. Inspiring to see a complex process executed seamlessly when so many steps could’ve gone wrong. Cost of failure could’ve been immense – billions of $ and hundreds of engineering years go down the drain,” wrote Ben-Sasson.
Ethereum Core Developer Preston van Loon meanwhile, confirmed the network’s block production time post-merge became slightly faster.
“Ethereum is ~10% faster on proof of stake. Previously blocks were produced every 13.3 seconds on average. Now, blocks are produced every 12 seconds,” vm Loon replied to one of the commentators.
Martin Köppelmann, the co-founder of Gnosis, also pointed to the “amazing stability” of block times after the transition, noting that the network only missed one block out of the 100 last blocks.
The Ethereum Foundation previously stated the merge will result in a 99.95% decrease in the network’s electricity usage, something developers highlighted today as well.
“When you meet on Reddit and 4 years later reduce the world’s electricity consumption by 0.5%,” Raul Jordan, co-founder at Prysmatic Labs, wrote as he shared a photo of him posing together with the team member van Loon.
Ethereum critics weigh in
Inevitably, some high-profile critics of Ethereum—largely from the Bitcoin maximalists camp—had their say on the event too.
“ETH fanboys watching the merge with anticipation is funny. There can be no technical failures in Ethereum because Ethereum’s existence isn’t predicated on any technology – it already failed in 2016 with the DAO fork. What exists today is a database run by a marketing company,” Samson Mow, who recently left his role as chief strategy officer at Blockstream to helm JAN3, a company that is on a mission “to accelerate hyperbitcoinization,” tweeted prior to the merge.
Marty Bent, the founder of a Bitcoin-focused media company TFTC said “the merge is the most important event in crypto history,” before diving into the reasons why.
According to Bent, the merge “will be recognized as the biggest virtue signal gone wrong that we’ll all be able to laugh at for decades into the future.”
“It’s all about the energy, stupid. Those who don’t realize this and actively run away from energy usage deserve what they get,” he added, referring to the popular idea of proof-of-work being the only right consensus mechanism to secure blockchain networks.
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