It’s one of the biggest complaints in crypto…
Energy consumption.
And it’s not something to sweep under the carpet. Last year Ethereum’s power consumption alone was roughly equivalent to that of Chile’s.
But in two days time a MAJOR event is taking place.
Galaxy brained crypto developers will be quivering at the edge of their seats.
We’re seeing the final stages of the Ethereum merge.
To most of us in the crypto world, particularly Ethereum junkies, this is a moon landing event. It’s that important.
So what is happening?
On September 15th the Ethereum blockchain will switch over from ‘Proof of Work’ to ‘Proof of Stake’.
Forget the jargon, you don’t need to know what that those two terms mean. For most users this is an under the hood change (though if you’re interested you can find out more here)
What you do need to know is this. As a result of this merge 3 things will happen.
1. Ethereum will consume 99.95% less energy
The equivalent of making a single cup of tea versus running a family household. And it will also cost 90% less to run. You can see great, stat-filled, explainer here.
2. The network will be 500% more secure
The Ethereum blockchain was already like Fort Knox. Post merge, as Consenys put it, the “difficulty of attack increases fivefold overnight”.
3. It paves the way for the next MAJOR wave of innovation
This is where things get really exciting…
The merge shifts the focus to the next game changer developments on the Ethereum roadmap: namely ‘sharding’ and ‘optimistic rollups’.
Again, you don’t need to know what these terms mean but it’s where we’ll start to see some real game changers.
And this is important because of this…
Something people in crypto don’t often talk about (because it’s an ugly truth)
The database technology used in the Web 2 world is often much faster than blockchain applications, which can be slow and clunky.
(By Web 2 I’m talking about the Facebooks, Googles, Amazons and so on).
There’s a good technical reason for this.
When you have a centralised system – as they do – the technology is under one umbrella.
It’s a closed system they can control and it allows them to upload vast troughs of data in parallel.
While less secure and more open to abuse it gives them the freedom and flexibility to inject as much speed and horsepower as they want.
They can make a set of servers and databases into the equivalent of a custom built Lamborghini with nitro boosters, if they want to.
In the decentralised world the network and the processing is spread between entities.
That’s part of its function, part of its brilliance.
It means you can have the (world changing) benefits of network security and personal data security… and you can remove the ability of evil corps to manipulate things they shouldn’t…
But each entry on the blockchain requires every node to process it.
So in other words you are only as fast as the other cogs in the network.
That’s fine because there are a set of minimum requirements in place – to ensure a certain level of performance – but it can provide a speed hump.
It means, to go back to our car analogy, that in terms of speed and horsepower it can be like having a fleet of Toyotas running a relay race against a single, modified Lamborghini with nitro boosters.
And this is important because these things matter…
It doesn’t matter how much we flag up the evils of big tech companies… of how they own and sell our data and manipulate our behaviour…
Or the unfair and rigged systems in place that funnel profits to Silicon Valley middlemen and the banking sector rather than the true creators, builders and innovators.
Because as humans we are often resistant to change.
To get people to change their habits and use new technology typically you have to offer something that is exponentially:
1. Faster
2. Cheaper
3. Easier to use
That’s one of the reasons it will take a little time for crypto to leapfrog the technologies we have in place right now.
(Which, by the way, is a great for us as investors. We are still early).
The merge sets us well on the path to major milestones that could compete with and better existing database solutions.
This is something we’ve all been through before
Cast your mind back to the early days of the internet.
Dialling up and connecting was a series an assault course discordant chimes and whistles.
Getting even the most simple task done meant waiting at least 5 minutes.
There was a time, unbelievable as it may sound now, when it was quicker and easier to send a fax.
But what we are seeing now, with the Ethereum merge, is a MAJOR milestone.
It paves with the way for the next great innovations of the future…
These will mean exponential speed increases and cost efficiencies.
Picture instantaneous transaction speeds and data transfer and all that this could mean for future applications.
The difference between fuzzy pixelated TV signals of the 80s and 90s and the crisp, hyper-real 4K TV resolution we see today.
We are already seeing thrilling innovation being layered over the existing Ethereum blockchain, even without this merge.
(These are achieving breakneck speeds and allowing for exciting new app developments).
But the merge sets us on the path of truly groundbreaking scalability built on an bulletproof core…
To serving hundreds of millions, billions even, in a sustainable, more efficient, more secure way.
This is an enormous milestone and one we are following extremely closely.
The Key Takeaway
More energy efficient, more secure, cheaper to run.
The deployments of major innovations are gathering pace and it’s thrilling to see.
If you’ve been on the fence with crypto… or sitting on the sidelines waiting to get involved… please keep your eyes peeled over the coming weeks.
We’ve put together something which will catapult you to front row seats in what we believe is the most exciting investment opportunity of our generation.
We’ll be in touch with all the details shortly.
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