One of the two most well-known cryptocurrencies for many people, Ethereum, or ETH, is significantly different from Bitcoin, or BTC. For instance, there are over 122 million
鈥 over 10 times more when compared to Bitcoin. The coin was created in 2013, and launched in 2015, in Switzerland by eight people 鈥 including Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin, who co-created Ethereum after World of Warcraft weakened his in-game character. This move, according to Vitalik, made him criticize centralized services, a philosophy that is at the core of Ethereum: Unlike Bitcoin 鈥 which acts like digital gold 鈥 Ethereum is a technology platform for applications not run by governments or companies. The Ethereum blockchain, for instance,
in 2022. Because of Ethereum鈥檚 high market share in DeFi,
or significant changes to how the currency works 鈥 like during the Ethereum Merge of September 2022 - can have a big impact.
Ethereum Merge, and the energy savings of 鈥淧roof-of-Stake鈥
Originally, both Bitcoin and Ethereum could be mined, as new tokens are rewarded to anyone who verifies a blockchain transaction on their PC. This is called 鈥淧roof-of-Work鈥 or PoW. In September 2022, Ethereum (ETH) moved away from PoW to 鈥淧roof-of-Stake鈥 (PoS): New coins will be created after crypto owners put in (鈥渟take鈥) their own coins to get a chance at transaction verification (and, thus, rewards). Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA) both already used this method of coin creation before, but Ethereum quickly rose to become
the top cryptocurrency in terms of staked value. The main argument for this switch is energy use: The
energy consumption of an Ethereum transaction equaled over 100,000 VISA transactions in December 2021 but was much lower after the Merge. The change, Ethereum鈥檚 creators observe, can impact both how people perceive cryptocurrencies but also the future development of
popular DeFi categories within Ethereum, like crypto lending.
Ethereum 鈥淪plit鈥, or the search for 鈥淧roof-of Work鈥 alternatives
While advocates praise declining energy costs, some of Ethereum's former miners did not agree with the Merge. A graphic that displays
how much of the cryptocurrency was held on blockchain addresses known to have mined them reveals a sizable dumping of ETH in September 2022. This because several miners hoped prices would increase after the Merge. When this did not happen, these miners started selling their ETH. The
transaction count on the Ethereum blockchain grew to roughly 1.1 million per day in September 2022. Miners, instead, split off and went looking for other cryptocurrencies to mine with their computer hardware. Side project
Ethereum PoW (ETHW) had significant price changes during this time, but Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Ravencoin (RVN) were also impacted.
This text provides general information. 糖心破解版 assumes no
liability for the information given being complete or correct.
Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date
data than referenced in the text.
