In the next several days, it’s expected that Ethereum will move over to a proof-of-stake model after its Beacon Chain merges with the Mainnet. The event is known as The Merge, and it’s creating a bit of a buzz in the cryptoverse and to help people keep track of when the merge will occur, Google has added a dynamic timer to its search results. To pull it up, just Google ‘the merge’ or ‘Ethereum merge’.
There’s no definitive time that the merge will happen, it depends on a number of factors including difficulty and hash rate. Google’s timer pulls in the relevant data to put together an estimation of when the merge is due, at the time of writing, it’ll occur in under three days. In fun Google style, the timer also has a white panda and a black panda running towards each other and the shorter the time gets, the closer these two bears will get… until they merge.
Hey @VitalikButerin @drakefjustin & other @ethereum folks, go google "the merge" for a fun little surprise & appreciation.
— Sam Padilla (@theSamPadilla) September 9, 2022
Everyone is so excited for what is coming and appreciative of the work that has been going into this for years. pic.twitter.com/3bgifV6Ywn
The move to proof-of-stake is a controversial one for Ethereum. Rather than verifying every transaction using miners, Ethereum will use validators. Anyone can become a validator if they hold enough ether, but some believe this model is open to abuse as it could centralize power among a small group of people. Proponents prefer proof-of-stake because it uses less energy than proof-of-work, but on the flip side, crypto miners using proof-of-work have recently helped stabilize Texas’ power grid to get it through a heat wave.
The price of Ethereum hit a low of around $880 on June 18, but with the merge approaching, the price has rallied to $1,730 at the time of writing. It will be interesting to see what happens to the price in the coming days as the merge occurs.