At the Blockchain Futurist Conference in Toronto in early August, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stood before an excitable audience to deliver some big news. “The Merge is coming,” he told the crowd, “this effort that we have been working on for basically the last eight years . . . Ethereum will finally become a proof-of-stake system . . . Yay!” The audience cheered.
If there is one thing the crypto community has in good supply, it’s promises. In the relatively short history of digital assets — starting with bitcoin in 2009 — evangelists have trailed a list of innovations that, they say, could solve inflation, revolutionise business, or provide a financial lifeline to people living under authoritarian regimes around the world.
