Ethereum’s switch, a software update called “the Merge,” is expected to happen this month, and one expected benefit is that not as many computers will be required to keep the blockchain going.
McDonald said the possibility of Ethereum cutting energy costs by 99.95% is “highly realistic.”
“When you’re moving from a system that is about generating as many random numbers as fast as possible with 10 million [graphic processing units] across the world, to a system that’s running on a few thousand computers that are pretty low energy, it’s going to make a huge difference,” McDonald said. Graphic processing units, or GPUs, are used in cryptocurrency mining.
Ethereum’s switch, a software update called “the Merge,” is expected to happen this month, and one expected benefit is that not as many computers will be required to keep the blockchain going.
To track Ethereum’s energy movement, McDonald created the Ethereum Emissions tracker, which takes a bottom-up approach, but doesn’t factor in Ethereum’s price or the price of electricity, according to McDonald’s website.
