One of the main barriers to mass adoption of these as a means of payment is the energy consumption associated with some cryptocurrencies. Like Bitcoin, Ethereum was very dynamic.

But today that is a thing of the past. Blockchain on September 15th Ethereum Completed the big update called The Merge. Thanks to this, Ethereum went away from the consensus system Proof of work (still using bitcoin) for proof of stake that consumes less power.

Therefore, after the September 15 update, Ethereum significantly reduced its power consumption. According to the Ethereum Foundation, this reduction will be around 99.95%.

The energy saved is comparable to a country’s demand

Alex De Vries, a researcher in data science and economics at VU University in Amsterdam, examined the impact of the Ethereum update in a scientific article relayed by the BBC. According to him, blockchain today uses 99.84% to 99.9996% less energy.

“In absolute terms, the reduction in electricity demand is equivalent to the electricity demand of a country like Ireland or Austria”We read in the article.

During energy consumption Bitcoin The researcher presents Ethereum as an example to follow, comparable to Finland today. Quoted by the BBC, De Vries explains that the Bitcoin community is very resistant to change.

Will Bitcoin be pushed to follow suit?

But according to him, despite the reluctance, the Ethereum community has shown that it is possible to make the necessary changes to a blockchain in production. “[…] The Bitcoin community may need a little help from outside to shake things up”, he said. Ethereum can serve as a roadmap for the merger.

However, the researcher believes that if the Ethereum merger was an achievement, it is not yet time to declare “a complete victory”. De Vries certainly notes that blockchain still lacks the same efficiency as centralized alternatives.

As a reminder, after the merger, Ethereum is already planning new updates to improve the performance of the blockchain. At the same time, the community intends to pay off its climate debt. In a previous article, we relayed an announcement made by the company ConsenSys (specializing in blockchain) on this topic Context of COP27.