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According to a tweet posted by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s merge upgrade is now expected to take place in just hours from now.
The event, which will mark the blockchain’s transition to proof-of-stake, has been the talk of the town for months.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin expressed his confidence that the merge event will end up being a success. The Ethereum co-founder believes that the event will have an enormous impact. Lubin added that the blockchain’s shift to proof-of-stake would be the biggest cryptocurrency-related event since the launch of Ethereum itself back in 2015.
As many expected, the price of ETH is failing to rally in the run-up to the merge event. The second-largest cryptocurrency is actually in the red at the time of writing, trading at $1,584 on the Bitstamp exchange. In the meantime, the price of Bitcoin has dipped below the $20,000 level.
While the merge is undoubtedly an extremely important event for the cryptocurrency industry, it is worth noting that it won’t increase Ethereum’s scalability right out of the gate.
That said, the much-hyped upgrade will dramatically decrease Ethereum’s energy consumption, thus making it more environmentally friendly.
The merge has also reignited discussions about the long-term viability of proof-of-work, ruffling the feathers of Bitcoin proponents.