The Merge happened: what now?

Transactions in the network will be confirmed not by miners but by validators due to staking. It will increase the efficiency and sustainability of Ethereum and hence the numerous applications that run on this blockchain.

The activation took place on block #15 537 393. The "tip" in the next block was 44.5 ETH.

Source: https://etherscan.io/block/15537394

According to Nansen, the validator participation rate exceeded 96%, aiming for a minimum of 66%.

Source: https://merge.nansen.ai/

Expected consequences of the update:

• Reduce your carbon footprint by 99.9%. This also means institutional investors can hold the ETH cryptocurrency in their portfolio without fear of violating their ESG policy. This asset looks attractive given the projected return on ETH staking of 5.5-13.2% per year.
• Nearly unlimited scalability and improved network security.
• Increasing the speed of transactions and reducing transaction fees.
• Daily output of ETH will be reduced by 90%, which, together with the burning of the coin, will reduce its inflation to almost zero.

In the longer term, the new protocol should lead to large-scale consequences for the crypto market.

Development of the DeFi market (for example, decentralized lending) and NFT. Ethereum holds 77% of the $75 billion decentralized finance (DeFi) market and about 80% of the NFT market with over $54 billion transactions.

The growth of the decentralization trend in jurisprudence, public administration, and other areas, the Development of Web3. Decentralization, moving away from intermediaries and regulators, can vastly change the world economy and public institutions.

ConsenSys green celebration

On the occasion of the update, ConsenSys, a leading developer in the Ethereum ecosystem, has released the "first green collection of NFTs." Users of the Metamask wallet owned by the company gained access to it: 64,000 NFTs were minted in the first 8 hours.

Source: https://consensys.net/blog/news/consensys-to-launch-one-of-the-first-green-nfts-on-ethereum-mainnet/

ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin co-founded the network with Vitalik Buterin in 2014 and called the update "the third most important event in the crypto industry."

"In terms of impact, in the history of our ecosystem, there have been two major events. The advent of Bitcoin and the development of Ethereum, a much more programmable and expressive blockchain technology. The slot's in as number three, in my opinion."

Joseph Lubin

CEO, ConsenSys

In addition to developing products on Ethereum, ConsenSys also invests in ETH itself and receives income from its staking.

ConsenSys believes deeply in the Ethereum project and has assembled a Protocols and R+D team to help drive core development work. Protocol engineers, client teams, and applied researchers on four continents have contributed to Ethereum's decentralized R&D led by the Ethereum Foundation.

ConsenSys team statement

September 1, 2022

To find out more information about ConsenSys and investment possibilities in the developer of Metamask wallet, watch our latest Venture Digest: