Back in 2016, Vitalik Buterin admitted that the existing Ethereum mining algorithm is not perfect. It's no secret that the use of proof of work (Proof of Work or PoW) has caused a shortage of semiconductors, and the growth in electricity consumption is amazing. For many, it is obvious that such methods should be abandoned, but only in 2018, Vitalik Buterin again decided to voice his position, talking about the inevitability of abandoning the traditional method of extracting Ether. It is already the second quarter of 2022, and it seems to us more and more that Proof of stake (PoS), like the world revolution, is inevitable, but still very far away.
In 2021, Vitalik Buterin returned to his favorite topic again. Surprisingly, only 5 years later the words acquired at least some real embodiment, because a test network was launched, which was supposed to find errors in the merger of Merge with the main Ethereum network. Not so long ago, the second stage started, which should be completed in early June, but something went wrong. Ethereum developers discovered unknown errors, after which they postponed the transition of ETH 2.0 indefinitely.
Curiously, at the beginning of 2022, on the website of the development team, they wrote that the abandonment of mining would come in the 2nd-3rd quarter of this year, but recently the date was shifted to the 3rd-4th quarters of 2022. Obviously, the speed of transition to PoS leaves much to be desired, and today no one knows when we should expect such serious changes.
Today we will study the point of view of a blogger leading a profile channel PRO100 Mining. In his opinion, the transition to PoS will take place at the end of 2022 or at the beginning of 2023, but this does not mean that it will be impossible to mine. In this case, the developers have saved an algorithm called the Difficulty Bomb. Think about it if tomorrow the Ethereum network would stop issuing coins to all farmers. Most likely, this would lead to a real scandal. Hundreds of thousands of miners would have cursed Vitalik, Ethereum would have fallen in price, which would have led to catastrophic consequences. It is clear that everything needs to be done correctly, slowly weaning farmers from the addiction of mining cryptocurrency using video cards.
Today, every 12-14 seconds, the system issues one block. The complexity bomb should significantly slow down this process. For some time, the terms for issuing one block will increase slightly, and after that it will increase over the course of months. According to Tim Beiko, who is the lead developer of Ethereum, in just 5 months, the generation time of one block will reach 64 seconds, an increase of almost 500%. It is easy to guess that for some time the miners will receive a little less money, and after that the income will begin to fall rapidly. This will lead to the fact that only the most hardy will remain in the work, while the majority of couch miners will go out of business.
In this regard, the blogger suggests the following terms: in the 4th quarter, there will be a merger (Merge) of Beacon Chain and the current Ethereum network. The merger will set off a difficulty bomb that will slowly start to reduce the profitability of Ether mining over the course of half a year. Well, in the second half of 2023, the great and mighty PoS will happen.
