Ethereum Development 55% Complete After Merge: Vitalik Buterin

Vitalik Buterin discussed the long-term viability of the network on July 21 at the annual Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) in Paris.

With just two months before Ethereum (ETH) switches from energy-intensive proof-of-work mining to proof-of-stake consensus, the highly anticipated Merge was a hot subject.

To an audience of developers, Buterin said, "After the merging, you will be able to construct an Ethereum client that does not even know the proof-of-work phase has occurred."

He continued by saying that developers still had a lot of work to do since the network as a whole will only be "55 percent complete until we conclude the Merge." Although there may be delays, September 19 has been set aside for The Merge, which will connect the current Ethereum chain with the fresh Beacon Chain.

Massive Planned Ethereum Scaling

The transaction costs associated with Ethereum, which soar when the network is overloaded, are one of the most often voiced grievances. As a consensus change, The Merge won't resolve this problem, therefore transaction fees will continue to vary and become more costly during periods of high block space demand.

As the network grows, this problem will be addressed by upgrades scheduled for the next year.

 Ethereum "will be a far more scalable system by the conclusion of this road plan," said Buterin, adding that it "will be able to perform 100,000 transactions per second" by then. The network can only handle 15-20 transactions per second at the moment, which makes wider adoption impractical.

Buterin suggested more improvements with the rhymes "surge," "verge," "purge," and "splurge" in addition to the present one. These are a component of the network's cleaning phase and scale development, which are anticipated to be implemented in the next years.

He continued by saying that there will be significant adjustments to the security model, token supply, and monetary policy of Ethereum. Currently, around 5.5 million ETH are still being issued annually for Ethereum. Once the Merge takes place, the EIP-1559 upgrade's transaction fee burning procedure will render issuance deflationary, causing the supply to gradually decline.

More than 2.5 million ETH have been burned or lost when the update was introduced in August 2021. This is worth almost $4 billion at the present pricing.

Merge momentum is still present

Asset values are still rising as a result of these monetary characteristics, which are the exact opposite of inflationary fiat currencies. As interest in Merge rises, ETH has gained 33% over the previous week.

Following a monthly gain of 40%, ETH was up 2.5 percent on the day and trading at $1,578 at the time of writing. It is driving the current crypto market rise, but next week's macroeconomic data and worries about a recession may swiftly send everything spiraling downward.