Solana co-founder says Ethereum has a long way to go in scalability despite Merge

Besides making the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain energy efficient, the Merge Upgrade is expected to improve the scalability of the network. However, a section of the crypto market ascertains that Ethereum won’t be solving the scalability issue anytime soon despite the historic upgrade. 

In particular, Solana Labs Co-Founder Anatoly Yakovenko believes the Merge has minimal impact on improving Ethereum’s scalability based on the number of transactions and users, he said during an interview with Bloomberg Technology on September 21. 

“The Ethereum Merge doesn’t really improve the scalability of the network. When you look at the number of transactions that Solana (SOL) handles from applications and from users on a daily basis, that’s more than not just Ethereum but all Ethereum-based blockchains combined. So I think Ethereum has a long way to go on scalability,” Yakovenko said. 

Merge to attract capital inflow 

However, Yakovenko stated that the Merge is a positive aspect for the crypto sector, noting that it will bring some clarity, especially on the security of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocols, alongside attracting capital inflow. 

“I’m really excited about the fact that Ethereum is moving to Proof-of-Stake because this will finally put the debate around whether Proof-of-Stake is secure to us. I think Ethereum doing this will really prove to everyone that this technology is now mature enough to handle very large capitalization,” he added. 

Notably, the Merge upgrade is projected to increase scalability on Ethereum’s network with the help of sharding in return, increasing throughput and potentially reducing transaction costs and time. 

Ethereum’s future upgrades 

However, the scalability is expected to be achieved with other lined-up Ethereum future upgrades. Notably, at the moment, the network is focusing on the Shanghai upgrade set to introduce fundamental changes to Ethereum virtual machine functionalities. 

At the same time, Ethereum’s dominance as a decentralized finance (DeFi) crypto project has faced threats from platforms like Solana, also dubbed ‘Ethereum killer.’ 

In this line, a section of the crypto sector believes that ‘Ethereum killers’ will likely stand out as layer-2 protocols meant to complement Ethereum. 

Watch the full interview below: