The price of ether dipped on Thursday despite news of the environmentally friendly move
(Picture: REUTERS)One of the biggest moments in cryptocurrency history has finally come to pass – yes, the Ethereum blockchain has finished its “merge” to a more eco-friendly platform.
In essence, it now means the amount of energy needed to create ether tokens is 99 per cent less after it dropped the need for highly power-intensive bitcoin-style mining techniques. Formerly it used the “proof of work” method, which generates random numbers to validate transactions on Ethereum and create new coins. Its annual energy consumption has been estimated as similar to that of a small western country. Instead the “proof of stake” method relies on participants using their own ether holdings as guarantees, enabling them to obtain additional ether coins.
