Vitalik Buterin backs Ethereum’s move to Proof of Stake, even though Proof of Work is still being discussed.
The co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, has spoken out about the change from the standard proof-of-work (PoW) model to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. This comes after rumors in the Ethereum community. Amanda Cassatt, founder and CEO of Serotonin, a web3 marketing company, used Twitter to say that some Ethereum supporters were unhappy with how the network was running at the moment. This started the debate. Cassatt made it clear that these feelings were not just her own, but were based on larger conversations she had been a part of.
Buterin joined the conversation and explained why the move away from Proof of Work was necessary. He said that the Proof of Work design had problems that went against Ethereum’s general goal for the future.
Ethereum’s Transition to Proof of Stake
Since its start in July 2015, ETH has used a Proof of Work (PoW) consensus process similar to Bitcoin. Miners were very important in keeping the network safe and making it possible for new ETH tokens to be issued. But this model changed a lot when “The Merge” happened in September 2022. ETH switched to a Proof of Stake infrastructure, which meant that stakers took the place of miners in a huge technological change.
Some supporters are upset about this change because it seems to go against ETH core values. Specifically, a group led by Chinese miner Chandler Guo tried to protect a form of ETH Proof-of-Work chain, but their efforts failed and the group’s core team was broken up. The main coin of this alternative chain, ETHW, was trading for less than $4 per CoinMarketCap on April 26.
On the other hand, the number of validators and mining requests on Ethereum’s main Proof of Stake chain have both gone up. In February,As reported that more than 25% of all the ETH in circulation had been staked to protect the network and give users returns.
Buterin has also made a number of suggestions for making staking even less centralized and for making Ethereum’s Proof of Stake scheme more efficient.
