Nothing is more hazardous than the prospect of success. For example, if you think that bitcoin miners will continue to stockpile graphics cards, it’s simpler to accept that this will be the new normal going forward. However, if you let yourself to believe that something as simple as Ethereum’s switch to a proof-of-stake paradigm is an indication that GPU supply will increase soon, any delays in that transition would be felt all the more acutely.
In other words, Ethereum will not be able to accomplish “The Merge,” which will complete the cryptocurrency’s shift away from a proof-of-work basis, by the end of this year as previously planned. According to PCGamer, The Merge is now scheduled to take place somewhere in the first half of 2022, giving Ethereum miners at least a few more months to generate as much money as they possibly can before they are deemed useless.
With the rise of Ethereum, this has become something of a trend. As part of the cryptocurrency’s “London” hard fork, which was launched in August, it was intended to diminish the profitability of mining as well as the amount of influence miners had over the network. (In addition, the hard fork initiated a controlled burn of ETH, which has so far resulted in the purposeful destruction of nearly $2 billion in value of the cryptocurrency at the time of writing.)
However, in the months after the London hard split, Ethereum’s hash rate has increased, in part due to the rising popularity of non-fungible tokens, which has contributed to this increase (NFTs). This implies that Ethereum miners are donating more computational power to the network than they have ever done before, and minting NFTs has enabled them to maintain their current levels of income while doing so.
As a result, London proved to be a disappointment for eager PC players. The Merge is intended to remedy this situation. Proof-of-work models, according to Ethereum.org, are reliant on miners to “enable the decentralized Ethereum network to come to consensus, or agree on things like account balances and the sequence of transactions,” while proof-of-stake models are reliant on those who possess ETH to do this task.
Then the miners would say goodbye to their responsibilities—as well as their earnings. While the transition to a proof-of-stake mechanism for Ethereum is still anticipated, the timing for that transition has simply been pushed back.
Offer even a glimmer of optimism to those who have been competing with Ethereum miners over graphics cards at this point seems like it would be cruel to give them any reason to believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps a little schadenfreude would be more acceptable in this situation.
