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A researcher estimates that the power consumption of the Ethereum blockchain will decrease by 99% thanks to Proof-of-Stake and ETH 2.0.
Ethereum has been in the process of migration since December 2020. The blockchain is phasing out its Proof-Of-Work consensus, which is also operated by Bitcoin, to switch to Proof-of-Stake.
This migration will allow Ethereum 2.0 to reduce its congestion and the endemic increase in transaction prices. It also opens up the development of staking on Ethereum, and thus passive income.
But these are not the only advantages that will eventually benefit Ethereum 2.0. Another benefit comes into play at a time when Bitcoin is being criticized for its excessive energy consumption. ETH 2.0 is also synonymous with significant savings.
According to one researcher, Carl Beekhuizen, Ethereum version 2 will result in a 99% decrease in energy consumption compared to the current network. “According to my (very conservative) calculations, Ethereum will experience a reduction of more than 99.95% in energy consumption after the merger,” the Ethereum Foundation researcher estimates.
Ethereum is not the most energy-consuming blockchain today. That title goes to Bitcoin with 707 KWh per transaction. For comparison, the consumption is 0.0079 KWh per transaction for XRP.
At 62.56 KWh, Ethereum is well above that. And this is due to the use of Proof-of-Work. Overall, Beekhuizen estimates the consumption of ETH at 2.62 megawatts. This is equivalent to the energy consumed by an American city of 2100 homes.
By switching to PoS, Ethereum is taking care of its carbon footprint, responding to a real environmental concern. A transaction on ETH 2.0 will be equivalent to “about 20 minutes of television”.
This is still a lot, but much less than for Ethereum. Each transaction consumes as much as a household for 2.8 days. But Bitcoin does even worse, consuming 38 days of a household.
This is one more reason for Ethereum to accelerate its migration to Proof-of-Stake. However, this will still take time, at least a year. However, users are already responding.
At the end of April, the total amount of Ethereum (ETH) in staking on ETH 2.0 exceeded four million tokens. Cardano and Polkadot remain the leaders in staking. But Ethereum is soaring to 4th place.