All eyes are on Ethereum’s coming transition to Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus. It’s a historic moment in the history of crypto.
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder and muse, weighed in this week with his thoughts on what’s to come, and poignantly, the significance of decisions not made in the network’s evolution.
In an article titled ‘The Roads Not Taken’ and published on March 29, Buterin acknowledges that the move to PoS could have happened much earlier in the network’s lifespan.
The chain merge between Ethereum’s mainnet and the Eth2 beacon chain, dubbed The Merge, is expected to reduce new Ether emissions by 90% and cut the network’s energy consumption by more than 99% by doing away with Proof of Work (PoW) consensus.
Vitalik argues that Ethereum’s greatest challenges and criticisms have emerged from the difficulty of balancing two contradictory visions. To hear Buterin tell it, Ethereum must be “a highly performant and functional platform for building advanced applications” but also a “pure and simple blockchain.” In other words, complex and simple at the same time.
But how? In his article, Buterin shared his thoughts on key elements of Ethereum’s next phase and how the network got to where it is today.
Gasper is Coming
Ethereum’s shift to its ‘Gasper’ Proof of Stake (PoS) model and away from Proof of Work (PoW) will kick miners off the network. Instead, ETH hodlers that lock up coins and operate a node will be tasked with validating transactions moving forward.
Ethereum’s environmental footprint will dramatically shrink alongside its block rewards under PoS consensus. Coupled with the fee burn introduced with EIP-1559 last August, many analysts believe Ethereum will become deflationary once it moves to PoS — meaning that more Ether will be burned than created, and possibly paving the way for significant price gains.
But Gasper is simultaneously a…
