SNEAK PEEK
- On the PoS-based Ethereum network, a user paid a record-breaking 36 ETH, or nearly $60K at the time of writing, to create the first-ever non-fungible tokens.
- Because The Merge merely modifies the overall consensus technique and doesn’t expand network capacity, it won’t significantly reduce gas prices.
- CEO Vitalik Buterin cites exorbitant expenses and massive energy use as two major factors in the switch.
When the Ethereum network switched to a Proof-of-Stake consensus method, it underwent its biggest upgrade in history. Following that, users start coming up with creative methods to remember the occasion and contribute to history.
When someone paid $60k in fees to mint the first NFT on Ethereum after Merge, the celebration took a grand turn. Someone minted an NFT with the title “The Transition” and the panda face “The Transition” at block height 15537394 to commemorate the switch to a Proof-of-Stake mechanism.
It is interesting to note that the Ethereum Merge doesn’t reduce gas costs. Someone went above and above to mark the momentous occasion, even if it meant paying high gas costs.
One of the most pervasive myths about the occasion is this one. The Merge won’t drastically lower gas prices because it doesn’t increase network capacity and only modifies the overall consensus method. To address this specific difficulty, several scaling solutions will be implemented at a later time.
Two of the key reasons for the switch, according to CEO Vitalik Buterin, are the high costs and tremendous energy consumption. The Merge reportedly significantly reduces energy use by 99.95%, according to claims.
In response to a contentious debate among environmentalists about the crypto industry, he said that this will assist “non-environmental externalities” as well as the environment. As an illustration, the cost of GPUs rose as a result of the Ether (ETH) mining industry.
At block 15537393, The Merge ultimately took place on Thursday at 06:42:42 UTC, just following Vitalik’s brief moment of fame during the webcast. The execution and consensus layers of the Ethereum mainnet were joined at a TTD of 58750000000000000000000.
The Merge was long awaited and is a crucial step toward accelerating the uptake of decentralized technology and bringing the subsequent billion people into the ecosystem.
