Cryptocurrencies: understand everything about “The Merge”, the highly anticipated ecological revolution of the Ethereum blockchain

Repeatedly postponed and just as feared, the great migration will take place by Thursday despite a hectic market.

Blockchain and cryptocurrency novices and experts have marked the date on their calendars because a real revolution of the second most important "blockchain" after Bitcoin is beginning.

This technical and historical update opens a new era and will have implications in the medium term and in everyone's daily life.

Here is what you need to remember and assimilate to fully understand the issues of “The Merge”.

What happens by Thursday?

A real systemic change for the Ethereum blockchain which will go through the Fusion box (“The Merge” in English).

Created in July 2015, this decentralized exchange protocol has so far been based, like Bitcoin, on the validation of transactions or the production of "tokens" by the

method in English ("Proof of work").

In concrete terms, these IT operations require a great deal of computing power and therefore powerful installations such as servers and graphics cards to "mine", i.e. validate a block of encrypted and secure data and obtain a reward in exchange. .

Competition at proven environmental cost.

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Thousands of Ether “miners” will therefore inevitably find themselves in technical unemployment but for a good cause, according to the promoters of this expected transition.

Criticized for being an energy abyss, this method will be replaced by the

where the validators will have to, to receive the reward, place in a common pot a bet of 32 Ether, the cryptocurrency associated with Ethereum, approximately 50,000 euros.

And believe in their lucky stars.

“The validation of a cryptocurrency will take place on a smart contract where it is locked until a randomly chosen validator confirms each new block and then receives the associated reward” explains Chainalysis.

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The transition from an old protocol to a more modern one involves technical risks despite numerous upstream tests.

Major trading platforms such as Binance, Coinbase or BitPanda have, for example, planned to briefly freeze Ether trading.

Useful precision, the date and time depend on the mining of the last block in the old method and therefore on the transition to Proof of Stake.

Many countdown clocks online indicate the fateful hour.

Who carries out this delicate operation?

They will have to change the critical parts of an engine that is still running.

The upgrade to Ethereum 2.0 is fully decentralized.

"It's not a company behind it, but many developers scattered around the world who want to prove that this network has a future", summarizes Charlie Guillemot, co-CEO of Unagi, a start-up that publishes a fantasy football game. with NFTs.

The major players in the sector therefore did not hesitate to delegate part of their teams to this major project.

What does this change?

The new method gives pride of place to software rather than to computing power and the transaction validators - and their powerful electrical installations - will no longer be essential to run the machine.

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If the merger succeeds as expected, "Ethereum's electricity consumption will drop by 99%" assures us Joe Lubin, co-creator of Ethereum and boss of ConsenSys, editor in particular of the MetaMask wallet.

The carbon footprint of the Ethereum blockchain is currently causing some artists and industrialists to boycott it, but the success of the transition "could, over time, increase the acceptability of Ethereum and all applications built on the blockchain, by decision-makers and regulators”, anticipates the Dutch bank-insurer ING in a recent note.

The practical applications of blockchains are increasing in banking, insurance, but also logistics or health.

And for individuals, the prospect of paying every day with a slightly more “green” cryptocurrency is fast approaching.