The Merge upgrade, considered one of the biggest on the Ethereum blockchain to date, immediately reduced network power consumption by 99.9%.
On September 15, the Ethereum blockchain switched from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism in an effort to transition to a more environmentally friendly blockchain. What followed was an immediate sharp drop in the total energy consumption of the Ethereum network.
Before the Merge upgrade, in 2022, Ethereum’s power consumption ranged from 46.31 terawatt hours (TWh) per year to 93.98 TWh per year. The lowest energy consumption for Ethereum was recorded on December 26, 2019, at 4.75 TWh per year.
As of October 15, the day of the Ethereum Merge upgrade, Ethereum’s power consumption has dropped by more than 99.9% and continues to maintain low power consumption. As a result, the carbon footprint of the network is currently 0.1 million tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) per year.
For Ethereum transactions, the power consumption is 0.03 kilowatt hours (kWh) and the carbon footprint is 0.01 kg of CO2, which according to Digiconomist is equivalent to the energy used to follow YouTube for two hours.
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Despite the celebrations surrounding Ethereum’s transition to PoS, community members have raised concerns about blockchain centralization, and increased regulatory oversight.
The aspect of centralization became apparent immediately after the Merge upgrade, as 46.15% of the nodes to store data, process transactions, and add new blockchain blocks, could be assigned to two direct addresses.
Although Ethereum proponents claim that anyone with 32 ether (ETH) can become a collector, it is important to note that 32 ETH, or about $41,416, is not a small amount for a beginner or simple trader .
