According to current data, Ethereum’s transition to PoS will take place on the afternoon of September 14. This is the timeframe that the Wen Merge platform is now targeting.

Countdown to the transition of the Etherium network to PoS

As a reminder, the final timing of the upgrade depends on the activity of the miners. The more processing power they use to mine ETH now, the faster the update will happen.

What will happen to Ether after the merger

Vitalik had the idea of implementing Proof-of-Stake a long time ago, when Etherium was still in its early stages of development. Buterin recalls that PoS was initially perceived as something unrealistic and impractical. In particular, in 2014, an article appeared on the blog of the Etherium development team with a theory about an algorithm called a slasher. The publication outlined the concept of sanctions for network nodes that vote for inconsistent actions, i.e. essentially harming the blockchain.

Here is Vitalik’s quote about this, published in Cointelegraph.

This was my attempt to move forward on what critics of Proof-of-Stake call the “no stake at stake” problem. In the Proof-of-Work system, if you want to build a chain over two blocks, you have to do double work, whereas in Proof-of-Stake you can just sign as many transactions as you want.

Right now, there's a mechanism called slashing in the Ethereum PoS network that penalises unscrupulous validators whose actions could harm the blockchain. In this case, it involves reducing the balance of the validator once. In this way, the network is protected from bad behaviour and the attacker suffers a financial loss, which reduces its interest in the attack.

Etherium co-founder Vitalik Buterin

Right now, Etherium is currently running on Proof-of-Work algorithm, with transaction confirmation and block lookup being handled by miners. In the Proof-of-Stake concept, there is no mining with video cards or ASIC miners as such, but transaction confirmation is done by validator nodes. Naturally, there must be penalties on the network so that validators are motivated to behave in good faith.

To become a validator, you need to deposit at least 32 ETH into an Etherium deposit smart contract

To that end, a theoretical algorithm called “slasher” first began to talk about sanctions in the form of blocking the funds deposited in advance by the validator instead of directly reducing its income. Buterin then talked about a concept called “weak subjectivity”, introduced later that year. Here, in order for a PoS network to benefit from the full security guarantees of the mechanism, a network node must be online at fairly regular intervals.

This could be every week, month or year, with longer time periods becoming increasingly inconvenient for validators in terms of liquidity, as they would have to keep their funds locked up longer. Buterin believes that this was the deciding factor that made him think about moving to PoS. Here’s his rejoinder.

Oddly enough, it was the realisation that it was an unavoidable compromise that made me come to terms with it. It made me realise that while it is a flaw, it is one of a kind in this new system.

Etherium exchange rate over the last 30 days

According to Armstrong, he was initially among the sceptics about the first PoS blockchain concepts. It took him a few years to change his mind. Here’s a rejoinder from the head of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.

When people started talking about full Turing language on blockchain, I thought it was too easy a target for a hack, and so I was initially sceptical.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong

The Coinbase CEO then realised that Bitcoin could not become the backbone of the blockchain ecosystem because of the technical limitations of its own protocol. Not long after the release of Etherium, the altcoin showed early success in adopting decentralised applications. This was an important argument for Armstrong.

Just watching Vitalik’s progress and what decentralised applications are coming out, we at Coinbase have come to the idea that we need to be open-minded about every blockchain and token. You can’t just sit in an ivory tower focusing only on one Bitcoin.

Coinbase previously announced support for Ethereum 2.0 stacking

Vitalik concluded his arguments about PoS by saying that this consensus algorithm would allow Ethereum to achieve much greater decentralisation. Validators can deploy a node anywhere in the world using ordinary computers and internet access. In the long term, moving to Proof-of-Stake will make the altcoin a better version of itself, the developer notes.


The creator of Etherium seems in no doubt that the massive blockchain upgrade will benefit it. As we've noted before, Eth's move will pave the way for further updates to the blockchain, which will include increasing its bandwidth and lowering its fees. In addition, eco-lovers won't be able to criticise the network, as it will now require a fraction of the electricity it needs to run. So now all we have to do is wait for the Proof of Ownership consensus algorithm to be activated and watch for further innovations.


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