馃攣The Merge is Behind Us and The Revolution Can Begin!
On September 15th, the Ethereum blockchain officially switched its consensus mechanism to proof-of-stake instead of the energy-consuming proof-of-work. The Ethereum foundation estimates energy consumption to decrease by 99.95% (Full story in TechCrunch).
The proof-of-stake relies on various "authorities" on the chain having "a skin in the game".
Every block receives approval from "validators" who bought a large amount of Ethereum as a "stake". New transactions such as mining need approval from two-thirds of the validators. In opposition, proof-of-work was based on the ability to solve complex hashing calculations using brute-force algorithms.
Ethereum is now the front-runner to become the blockchain of the future. The environmental impact for now seems mitigated. Contrary to BitCoin, Ethereum provides smart contract and non-fungible tokens (NFT) services. It is not purely speculative. Polygon has already built a platform and ecosystem on top of Ethereum's infrastructure to allow developers to create decentralized apps (dapps).
I expect all games and social media in the next 1-2 years to offer NFT-based features.
This was my take on #web3 from this week's Choose Your Own Future! Read the rest here: https://ppfosec.com/uber-hacked-by-teenager/
Follow me on @PeakDcom as well!
