Green breakthrough of Ethereum, reduces consumption by 99.95%

Change in a 'green' key for Ethereum, one of the largest blockchain platforms.

In these hours with an update called 'The Merge', literally fusion, it becomes sustainable: the innovation will lead to a reduction of the energy consumption of the network by 99.95%.

Ethereum is a Blockchain platform on which one of the largest ecosystems of applications is based, from decentralized finance protocols to various Nft projects, i.e. digital certificates so used in the art world.

"It is an epochal change", comment Valeria Portale and Giacomo Vella of the Blockchain & Distributed Ledger Observatory of the Politecnico di Milano.

It should be emphasized that the change does not affect all cryptocurrencies, bitcoin for example will continue to work with a system that consumes energy.

The modification of Ethereum will lead to no longer needing powerful computers that solve mathematical puzzles to manage the network and validate its transactions.

The new blockchain is in fact based on the common interest that the transaction is correct.

The change in favor of sustainability takes place thanks to the replacement of the proof-of-work consensus, used up to now on the Ethereum network, with the proof-of-stake.

In short, those who own a lot of Ethereum will validate the transitions because they will be interested in the fact that the currency and its system are reliable and controlled.

In exchange for validation, the blockchain will provide a reward in Ethereum.

The consumption of electricity to create cryptocurrencies is enormous.

According to a recent analysis by CryptoMonday, the energy consumption of the Bitcoin network would be at least 127 terawatt hours per year.

Bitcoin consumes 707 kWh of electricity per transaction, which is 11 times that of Ethereum.

In 2022, the average energy consumption for each transaction with Bitcoin can be comparable to hundreds of thousands of transactions with the Visa card.