Ethereum — What “Merge” achieves, what it doesn’t, and what is next.

Ethereum used to run on a Proof-of-Work (PoW). “The Merge” scrapped the PoW mechanism and merged Ethereum’s Execution Chain with a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chain called Beacon.

With this migration, Ethereum’s energy consumption has fallen by more than 99.9%. Going by Mainstream media’s coverage of the Merge, one would think that reduction in energy usage is the most important achievement of the Merge.

To me, it is among the less important things. Some of the more important aspects are:

I. Achievement in Open Source Development

Web2 was built by developer employees. Web3 is being built by developer communities. This has always been considered a challenge. Complicated development using this model has even been considered impossible.

Anyone who has ever worked in a team knows how difficult it can be to get all team members on the same page. Sometimes projects involve more than one team. In addition to coordination and logistical challenges, each team has its own dynamics, motivations, and insecurities making the achievement of project targets that much more difficult. Then there are projects where multiple teams of multiple organizations are involved. The complications and politics go up even further.