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Goodbye PoW! Ethereum plans to merge in Q2 next year, staking unlocking, high Gas Fees remain unresolved.

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Goodbye PoW! Ethereum plans to merge in Q2 next year, staking unlocking, high Gas Fees remain unresolved.

Coinbase's blockchain engineer Yuga, tweeted on the 6th that he participated in a community call regarding Ethereum's future merger focus. He mentioned that Ethereum 2.0 is expected to arrive in the second quarter of next year, and the PoW consensus mechanism will soon be history.

https://twitter.com/yugacohler/status/1456749796098772995

Ethereum Merger Highlights

Since its development in 2015, Ethereum is expected to undergo a merger between ETH 1.0 and ETH 2.0 in Q2 of next year. Here are the merger highlights compiled by Yuga:

1. Ethereum's consensus mechanism will transition from PoW (Proof of Work) to PoS (Proof of Stake).

2. The Ethereum merger process will not involve any downtime, referred to as Consensus Hot Swap.

3. The merger will divide the Ethereum network logic into two layers:

  • Consensus Layer: Where validators vote on blocks, finality, and implementation of consensus nodes including Prylabs and Teku
  • Execution Layer: Where nodes construct blocks, verify transactions, with execution layer nodes including Geth and nethermindeth

4. To complete the merger, node operators need to implement a consensus node in addition to existing execution nodes.

5. After the merger, ETH staked in smart contracts will remain locked. The primary task for the Ethereum community post-merger will be to unlock these ETH.

The Future of Ethereum

Based on the above points, post-merger, Ethereum's mining rewards will become a thing of the past, with all future ETH issuance being validation rewards. Concerning the high Gas Fees that general users worry about, Yuga mentioned that post-merger, the previous miner priority fee will be redirected to the transaction recipients, but the impact on Gas Fees remains uncertain.

In October of this year, the Beacon Chain completed the Altair upgrade, allowing developers to be more efficient through "light clients." Adjustments to the offline penalties mechanism for validators have also increased block security. All upgrades so far have been crucial steps for Ethereum's transition to PoS. Once the merger is completed, ETH 1.0 will become one of the shard chains of ETH 2.0.