‘Engineering Feat Completed on Engineer’s Day’: Indian Crypto Experts Welcome ‘Merge’

Ethereum's much talked-about Merge upgrade finally arrived on Thursday, September 15. The developers working on the update confirmed that the eco-friendly revamp of the world's most commercialised blockchain has been completed after years of work that encountered several technical snags. Incidentally, the date of September 15 is also observed as the National Engineer's Day — which was pointed out by Ashish Singhal, Co-founder and CEO of Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber.

Speaking to Gadgets 360, Singhal said the release of the Merge is historic and marks a true engineering feat.

“Institutions are striving for carbon-neutrality in line with our climate goals, and many of them may have stayed away from adopting Web3 due to such concerns. But with a Proof of Stake (PoS) Ethereum now live, such concerns have been addressed. This is truly an engineering feat. That it was completed on the Engineer's Day is only apt,” said Singhal.

By successfully transitioning to the PoS mining mechanism, Ethereum has become 99.95 percent more energy efficient. The developers who worked on this project did it without disrupting the network, the thousands of apps and protocols based on it, or the users who have invested in its native coin Ether.

In the backdrop of the Merge upgrade, Ether is trading at $1,585 (roughly Rs. 1.30 lakh).

Insiders from India's budding crypto community have welcomed the Merge with hopes that this green initiative would lead to a greater adoption of the blockchain technology.

“This major event will have a notable impact on the entire crypto space. Ethereum has achieved a significant milestone in transitioning from PoW to PoS mechanism,” Edul Patel, CEO and co-founder of Mudrex crypto investment platform, told Gadgets 360.

While the PoS mining operations use randomly selected miners to validate transactions, PoW mining needs a competitive validation method to confirm transactions and add new blocks to the blockchain. Hence, the operations of PoW mining is costlier to maintain.

Bitcoin functions on PoW mining model and is infamous for being detrimental to the environment.

Indian developers are celebrating this much-awaited milestone in the crypto industry, glimpses of which have emerged on social media.

The Merge was first proposed in 2014. The developers have run extensive tests on the Ethereum revamp all these years becausey the decentralised finance (DeFi) apps reportedly worth over $100 billion (roughly Rs. 7,61,110 crore) are supported on the blockchain, and cannot be put in jeopardy.

Indian developers have expressed heart-felt gratitude to the team that achieved this historic turning point for the sector.

Bitcoin's kingship over the crypto sector could also be challenged with the Merge now becoming an eco-friendly alternative for developers and investors.

“As the chain will now run-on locked ETH, the net amount of ETH in supply/circulation is decreasing and we should see that getting priced in the times to come,” Minal Thukral, Executive Vice-President, Growth and Strategy at CoinDCX crypto exchange, told Gadgets 360. “Big day for everyone who was working on the Merge as we see everything smooth post one of the highest financial events in the history of crypto.”