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The Ethereum merge is the biggest thing happening in crypto right now, and for our U.S. readers, it’s happening late tonight—currently targeted for around 10 p.m. PT on the West Coast, or 1 a.m. ET on Thursday for East Coasters.
If you’ve been looking forward to Ethereum’s shift to an eco-friendly model and want to stay up late to see what happens when the current proof-of-work network is merged with the new proof-of-stake network, the Ethereum Foundation is holding its own livestream.
The Ethereum Foundation’s livestream will be hosted on YouTube, and the link is already live ahead of tonight’s start. It’s slated to begin about one hour before the estimated execution of the merge, which will happen with a predetermined block on the Ethereum blockchain.
Additionally, viewers who join approximately two hours before the merge is expected to occur can “participate in a POAP art canvas,” according to the YouTube description. That suggests that early viewers will be able to claim a Proof of Attendance Protocol (POAP) collectible, which is like an NFT ticket stub for an event.
The Ethereum Foundation’s stream will feature members from the Ethereum community, including the Ethereum Cat Herders that provide project management support to developers, as well as content creators like Bankless and The Daily Gwei.
Ethereum’s merge is years in the making, and has been tested extensively ahead of the final mainnet transition. The actual process is expected to take about 12 minutes, during which time about 150 developers will be on high alert to address any potential hitches.
The environmental impact of the merge should be significant, with the new proof-of-stake network—in which validators stake (or hold) coins and earn rewards for processing transactions—expected to use 99.95% less total energy than the current mining model, according to estimates from the Ethereum Foundation.
It’s the first in a series of major upgrades for Ethereum, with future steps set to help scale the network to handle significantly more transactions, do so at a lower cost, and trim down the overall storage footprint. The merge was originally called “Ethereum 2.0,” but that name was retired in favor of rhyming names for each step: merge, surge, verge, purge, and splurge.