After years of delays, the “Merge” seems all but certain to take place in September, with the cryptography underlying the blockchain undergoing a radical shift to a system where the creation of new ether tokens becomes far less energy intensive.
“Crypto is still very tightly coupled; I think when the Merge successfully completes it could drive up the price of bitcoin as well,” said Alex Miller, CEO of Hiro, which builds developer tools to create applications for bitcoin. The ethereum blockchain currently uses the energy-intensive proof-of work method of validating blocks, wherein miners use massive amounts of power to quickly solve complex computational problems to win newly minted coins.
Ether mining has hitherto been more profitable than bitcoin mining. Ether miners made $18-billion in 2021 versus $17-billion for bitcoin miners, according to Arcane Research. Some miners have decided to shift to mining the next best option, such as the tokens Ethereum Classic or Ravencoin.