On what is a historic day for the blockchain community, our Founder and CEO Gilbert Verdian spoke to The Independent about what ‘The Merge’ means for the financial services sector.
At 7:45 BST today, the Ethereum network completed what has been dubbed ‘The Merge’, involving a complex network transition from proof-of-work – a technology pioneered by Bitcoin – to proof-of-stake. The result is that vast computing power is no longer needed to support transactions and the minting of new tokens. Before The Merge, Ethereum’s electricity requirements were equivalent to that of a small country.
But what does it mean for those of us not steeped in the technical details of blockchain? Gilbert Verdian, our Founder and CEO, spoke to the UK’s Independent newspaper to provide some context:
“The Merge is a significant step forward bringing Ethereum into the mainstream, and it marks an evolution of blockchain technology.”
“A smaller carbon footprint has long been an industry goalpost…Now that this is happening, we will see more institutional adoption where financial services turn to decentralised infrastructure. It can offer safe and secure transaction processing at a fraction of the cost, when compared to the enormous expense and burden of today’s infrastructure.”