Amid the switch of the Ethereum network from the current proof of work to an energy-efficient proof of stake infrastructure, the mining revenues of ETH have plunged sharply in the past few weeks. With the ETH Merge in sight, the total mining revenue has reached its lowest level in one month.
The deposit contract of Ethereum 2.0, on the other hand, now has more than 13.5 million staked coins, which is the highest level on record. During the first week of December 2020, the figure stood at around 1 million.
“With The Merge just over a week away and the Beacon upgrade due today, many are now starting to speculate as to how the blockchain will operate (and how successfully) moving forward. However, some analysts now expect the switch to ‘proof of stake’ to lower its energy consumption, potentially by 99%. For context, this would equate to the electricity consumption of Portugal,” Simon Peters, a Market Analyst at eToro, said.
Last month, Finance Magnates highlighted a significant drop in the network profitability of Ethereum. The total number of ETH addresses in profit dropped to the lowest level in a month during August 2022.
Ethereum 2.0
Analysts termed the latest upgrade of ETH as the biggest shift in the history of the world's second-largest crypto asset.
“While this is just a hypothesis for now, as no proof of stake networks (Cardano, Solana) exist on the scale that Ethereum will be operating on, it will leave Bitcoin as the remaining largest ‘proof of work’ network,” Peters added.
