In brief
- Ethereum’s merge, which transitioned to an eco-friendly consensus model, was successfully completed overnight.
- A report from the Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute says that the network has cut its energy usage and carbon footprint by approximately 99.99% each.
Ethereum’s long-awaited merge, which was successfully completed overnight, was designed to drastically cut down on the blockchain network’s overall energy consumption—and it apparently has done just that. According to an initial report out this morning, Ethereum’s energy needs and carbon footprint have both fallen even more than anticipated.
The report, commissioned from the Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute (CCRI) by Ethereum-centric software firm ConsenSys, claims that Ethereum now uses approximately 99.99% less energy than before the merge was completed. It also suggests the blockchain's carbon footprint has dropped by just over 99.99% as well.
Previously, the Ethereum Foundation estimated that the merge would cut the network’s energy usage by approximately 99.95%, citing energy consumption estimates from Digiconomist, a site from noted crypto critic Alex de Vries. This week, Digiconomist itself claimed that the actual number would likely be 99.98%.
How the Ethereum Merge Ends the Environmental Debate About NFTs
One of the largest criticisms against NFTs will be rendered obsolete in just a matter of hours. That’s because the environmental impact of Ethereum, the largest network for NFTs, will effectively be abolished after the blockchain completes the merge—its long-awaited transition to proof of stake. Once the upgrade is complete, the move will reduce Ethereum’s energy consumption by more than 99%, according to the Ethereum Foundation, citing data from one of crypto’s best-known environmental critics....
According to the CCRI report, Ethereum’s overall electricity draw now tallies just 2,600 megawatt hours per year, compared to 23 million megawatt hours before the merge. As a result, Ethereum’s estimated annual CO2 emissions have dropped from over 11 million tons to just under 870—less than the combined total of 100 average American homes, per the EPA.
In a statement today, CCRI co-founder and CEO Uli Gallersdörfer said that Ethereum’s “green credentials” are now on par with other energy-efficient blockchain networks that began with a proof-of-stakeproof-of-stake consensus model, rather than transitioning to one as Ethereum just did.
Meanwhile, the ConsenSys press release described the merge as the “biggest decarbonization in the history of tech.” But there’s a major caveat here that’s worth noting.
While Ethereum has apparently shed the vast majority of its environmental impact, many former Ethereum miners—that is, people who ran powerful computers to secure the network and earn ETH rewards—have simply moved on to mine cryptocurrency on other networks.
Major Ethereum Mining Pools Will Back ETHW Mining
A number of big Ethereum mining pools are expected to support EthereumPoW (ETHW) following the merge, the new asset’s developers confirmed today. According to a series of tweets from the ETHW account, major pools such as F2Pool, Poolin, and BTC.com will support ETHW mining, which is expected to commence following a planned hard fork. A few hours later, Nanopool also announced that it would also participate. Mining pools are groups of crypto miners who share their resources so that other miners...
Major Ethereum mining pools—which group together resources from numerous users—have said that they will instead mine on the EthereumPoW (ETHW) network, which was forked from Ethereum’s mainnet ahead of the merge. Whether ETHW retains long-term interest remains to be seen, but in the short term, some former Ethereum miners hope to profit in that space.
Meanwhile, existing blockchain networks like Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ravencoin (RVN), and Ergo (ERG) have seen surging hash rates following the merge, which again likely means that miners have moved their powerful rigs from one network to another.
Decrypt-O's Ep. 2: Who Cares About the Ethereum Merge?
The Ethereum merge will happen this week. In this serving of Decrypt-O's, Kate Irwin explains the Bellatrix upgrade and the shadow fork, Dan Roberts predicts the impact Ethereum's move to proof of stake will have on Bitcoin's energy use PR problem (plus commentary from Dan Held from the gm podcast), and Sander Lutz hits the street in Hollyweird to ask regular folks if they know and care about the merge. (Production by Zack Edelman, editing by Jason Nelson.)
In other words, massive amounts of energy are still being spent on mining crypto—whether it’s for Bitcoin, an Ethereum offshoot, or another coin that relies on a proof-of-workproof-of-work model. It’s just not tied to Ethereum itself anymore, which should help the network shed the environmental concerns that will continue to be linked to Bitcoin and other such cryptocurrencies.
