Important Changes in Mining Ethereum Give Hope to Players
Big changes coming to one of the major cryptocurrencies - ETH. You can even risk calling these updates a small revolution. Is it possible that the twilight of crypto mining as we know it today is coming?
- A small revolution in Ethereum - the transformation from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake;
- Lower GPU power requirements and up to 99.95% less power consumption.
The creators of the Ethereum cryptocurrency are preparing many changes, transforming the basic way it works. While the whole process may still take many months, I guess you could afford to call it a small revolution. And maybe even a big one, if others follow in ETH's footsteps. The most important benefits of the ETH's transformation are to be a significant reduction in the demand for GPU power, as well as for energy - its consumption is to be lower by up to 99.95%.
According to the Ethereum blog, what can be considered a Proof-of-Work (PoW) model of cryptocurrency operation, will change to a proof-of-stake (Proof-of-Stake, PoS). A network called Beacon Chain is being prepared for the new system, which is very different from the standard blockchain currently in use. A very high emphasis is placed on security and certainty of established currency values in transactions.
"Ethereum will complete the transition to Proof-of-Stake in the coming months."
These are the words of Carl Beekhuizen, a research and development eomployee at the Ethereum Foundation. If the new system works, we will no longer see such high power demand of connected GPUs when mining the cryptocurrency. The efficiency of mining in PoS depends on the number of coins held, not the power of the GPU or ASIC devices. The overall power consumption of ETH, which is currently comparable to a medium-sized country, will drop to the equivalent of a small town. The energy gain is shown in the image below:
In addition to the obvious pluses of the transformation, also gamers can also benefit from it. When there will no longer be such a need for mining power, perhaps GPUs will finally appear in stores, at normal prices? For now we can probably only dream about it, although recent events related to Bitcoin - the ban in China or the drop in the exchange rate as a result of Elon Musk's actions - give a chance for the PC components market to return to normal. Now the fire of players' hopes may be stoked by Ethereum 2.0 - let's hope the transformation is successful.
