The much-anticipated Merge saw the light of day yesterday, September 15, setting the ball rolling for a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism in the Ethereum (ETH) network.
Since the Merge is the first step towards solving the scalability trilemma, the second-largest cryptocurrency will have to undergo four more steps to solve this issue, as reported by Bloomberg.
The four phases include the surge, the verge, the purge, and the splurge. Per the announcement:
“The Surge: Implementation of sharding, a scaling solution which will lower the cost of bundled transactions on Ethereum.”
The report added:
“The Purge: Elimination of historical data and technical debt. The Splurge: Miscellaneous updates after the first four stages to ensure smooth functioning of the network.”
The time frame for these stages is not well defined, but Sameep Singhania believes it might take two to three years. The co-founder of QuickSwap pointed out:
“It’s hard to talk about the timelines of the following four stages because all of them are still under active research and development. But, in my opinion, it will easily take 2-3 years before all phases are complete.”
Aditya Khanduri, the head of marketing at Biconomy, also opined that the purpose of the four upgrades was to make Ethereum cheaper, faster, and more scalable.
Upon the completion of the remaining four phases, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin pointed out that the network would be in a position to process 100,000 transactions per second.
Therefore, the merge is seen as a stepping stone toward future improvements. Developers involved in the Merge noted that switching from a proof-of-work (PoW) to PoS would make ETH easier and friendlier to design future updates that lower gas fees.
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