As the Merge deadline draws near, Vitalik and Armstrong talk about the upcoming ETH Proof-of-Stake (PoS) change.

As the Merge draws near, Vitalik and Armstrong talk about the ETH PoS change, with both of them believing that their support for the transition from PoW to PoS is the result of a gradual shift in perspective and good community actions.

Known to all as the co-creator of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, and the CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, are two of the most prominent figures in the cryptocurrency industry.

One Time, Point-of-Sale Was A Controversial Technique.

When discussing The Merge, which is scheduled for the middle of September 2022, the two were joined by Coinbase procedure expert Viktor Bunin on the Around the Block podcast. On their podcast, Vitalik and Armstrong talk about the recent Ethereum PoS switch.

Buterin recalled how he looked into proof-of-stake as a potential consensus system for the Ethereum blockchain, which was initially met with skepticism due to multiple unresolved flaws that appeared to make it unprofitable.

The Ethereum co-creator claims that the idea that a node would be punished for voting for activities that are incompatible with one another was introduced in one of the project’s early blog posts in 2014 by an algorithm called slasher.

That was my shot at addressing the “nothing-at-stake” criticism leveled at proof-of-stake by its critics. To build on top of two blocks requires twice the work in a proof-of-work system, but in a proof-of-stake system, you can simply sign as many documents as you like.

Buterin reasoned that it was doable to implement a clear repercussion for signing actions that are mutually exclusive. Over the course of 2014, studies investigated whether PoS could be safer than PoW by requiring penalties to reduce staked deposits rather than offering incentives, and whether or not Ethereum could rely on the security assumptions that PoS would entail.

Point-of-Sale versus Point-of-Warrior

Proof-of-stake, or PoS, is an alternative consensus method to the more common proof-of-work protocol. For as long as it has existed, the Ethereum mainnet has relied on proof of work to validate transactions and validate blocks on other blockchains, such as Bitcoin.

As part of the mining process, extractors validate transactions and add blocks to the blockchain, performing the “work” in proof of work. One of the main reasons Ethereum switched to proof of stake was that its proponents claimed it was the most trustworthy approach. Proof of stake, after all, operates in a slightly different fashion.

When Ethereum implements proof of stake, it will rely on trusted third parties called validators to verify transactions and put an end to mining.

Analysis by Vitalik

While reposting a tweet from the Ethereum Foundation, Buterin commented:

Warning: “Beacon Chain’s hard fork is on September 6,” even though the merge won’t happen until the 10-20th. Make sure to let your customers know beforehand!”

According to Buterin, the merger will not occur anytime soon. The Bellatrix upgrade to the Beacon Chain will set off the process, and a week later, on September 15, the two networks will merge.

This is because the integration is complex and challenging: the proof-of-work consensus method currently used by Ethereum will be replaced by the proof-of-stake system. Currently, both the Ethereum mainnet (the primary public network used by the vast majority of users) and the Beacon Chain (Ethereum’s proof-of-stake chain) exist side by side. After the merger of the two coins, however, Ethereum will be entirely PoS.