Ethereum’s transition to merge has been completed. Since the blockchain has finished its historic technological update, Ethermine, the largest Ethereum mining service provider by computer power, has shut down its servers for miners.
The announcement was made previously with the widely anticipated “Merge” software update for Ethereum, which will switch the most popular blockchain from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.
This implies that currently, ETH miners will no longer be able to mine Ether on the ETH network because investors who hold Ether will take the position of the powerful graphic cards that were previously needed to verify transaction data. These validators will go forward securely validating network data and securing the Ethereum blockchain.
“As a consequence of this transition, the Ethermine ETH mining pool will switch to withdraw-only mode once the Proof-of-Work mining phase has ended. At that point, “all Ethermine stratum servers will be shut down, and you will no longer be able to connect your miner to the Ethermine ETH pool.”
Ethermine tweeted on Wednsday
The much-awaited Ethereum merge is live
Since the Merge, the network has shifted over to proof-of-stake (PoS). On September 15 at 06:42:42 UTC at block 15537393, the Beacon Chain’s consensus layer and the ETH Mainnet’s execution layer were combined, bringing about the long-awaited Merge. The network will no longer depend on a proof-of-work consensus algorithm as a result.
The Ethereum Foundation claims that The Merge will boost the energy efficiency of the Ethereum network by around 99.95% and open the door for future scaling alternatives like sharding.
The Merge will fundamentally alter how businesses see ETH, even if it may not have an impact on the majority of current commercial use cases.
In addition to actual energy savings, the transition to proof-of-stake increases ETH’s security and lays the way for potential future advancements.