Ethereum completes the main network and the label chain merger into the pledged era POS mechanism

After several years of preparation and paving, Ethereum officially completed the merger of the main network and the letter chain (The Merge) on the afternoon of September 15, 2022. This is generally regarded by the outside world as a historic event in the blockchain world.

As a distributed system with millions of users, the current market value of Ethereum exceeds 180 billion US dollars, second only to Bitcoin, so it has attracted much attention.

Oukeyun Chain (HK01499, the stock price is HK $ 0.18, and the market value of HK $ 967 million) has tracked the merger all the way. The upgrade is equivalent to replacing the new base for the entire building of Ethereum. "

The merger changed the consensus mechanism of Ethereum ecology, which enabled its workingload certificate (POW) mechanism from the mining era to enter the pledged era of equity (POS) mechanism.

The merger has been completed, but the chain reaction brought by it may be more noteworthy. For example, will a large number of graphics device be sold and the graphics card market will fluctuate? Is the pledged era centralized or decentralized? Will the cryptocurrency market be stimulated?

The graphics giant ushered in new pressure

Ethereum was founded in 2014. Like Bitcoin, obtaining cryptocurrencies in this system is an important reason to attract users to participate. In the early days, Ethereum chose the same POW mechanism as Bitcoin. This mechanism requires users to use hardware devices, such as graphics cards, and obtain cryptocurrency rewards by putting in operational computing power. This process is called "mining".

Jiang Zhaosheng told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that the most common in Ethereum before the merger was "mining" with GPU, "about 70% ~ 80% of the entire Ethereum network computing power."

But the most criticized POW mechanism is the environmental protection issues brought by its high energy consumption characteristics. As the "mining" process corresponds to the high -speed operation of hardware equipment such as graphics cards, electrical energy has become an important supply to ensure the stability of "mining". According to reports, Bitcoin consumes about 150 Taiwa time per year, and exceeds 45 million people in Argentina for a year; Ethereum consumes about 62 Taiwa time per year, and it is also close to 9 million people in Switzerland. quantity. Ethereum officially said that after the merger is completed, the new POS mechanism can save 99.95%of the energy usage. The founder of Ethereum Vetalik Bottin said in social media that the merger of Ethereum will reduce the global electricity consumption by 0.2%.

But for manufacturers who sell "mining machines", merge may not be considered good news. Under the POW mechanism, the user of "mining" needs to configure a PC to run the mining program, where the performance card performance of the computer determines the speed and computing power of mining.

In order to speed up the mining speed, many "miners" will run dozens of graphics cards at the same time, which has prompted global graphics card sales to increase dramatically. According to Gartner statistics, from 2015 to 2018, GPU's total revenue also rose from US $ 3.82 billion to US $ 6.45 billion. Along with the rise of GPU sales, the rise of graphics giants.

According to the Guosheng Securities report, in the fourth quarter of 2021, 45%of Nvidia's revenue came from game and mining customers with a amount of 3.4 billion US dollars. And the other half of the conductor AMD (AMD.O, the stock price of $ 76.66, a market value of $ 123.8 billion) In the first quarter of 2022, its 54%revenue came from the calculation and graphic products including mining cards, with an amount of $ 4.8 billion Essence

Some research institutions estimate that as the miners give up the graphics card mining, one -third of the consumer graphics card market may disappear.

According to Nvidia's second quarter of fiscal year in fiscal year, Nvidia's game business revenue was 2.04 billion US dollars, a decrease of 33%from the same period last year, and a 44%decrease from the previous month. In addition to the atrophy of the PC market, the continuous decline of mining demand is undoubtedly an important factor.

In fact, stress has begun to appear. According to Nvidia's latest second quarter financial report, its inventory was 3.89 billion US dollars, and the same period last year was US $ 2.11 billion.

Jiang Zhaosheng analyzed the reporter of "Daily Economic News": "There may be some fluctuations in the graphics card market, but whether the real market will be greatly affected by the merger of Ethereum depends on multiple factors. Return. In addition, the role of graphics cards is relatively wide. For example, switching to the field of game can also play value, so it depends on the personal choice of miners. "

Is it near or further?

A major feature of blockchain is decentralization, and Ethereum based on this development also inherits this characteristic.

Jiang Zhaosheng believes that the merger of Ethereum will further reduce the past concerns about the gradual centralization of Ethereum in the past. "Under the POW mechanism, the computing power itself is actually capital. Whoever owns more capital can have greater computing power. However, under the POS mechanism, users no longer need to buy hardware such as graphics cards and mining machines, and only need to pledge through pledge. The tokens are involved in blockchain verification, which can further reduce the entry threshold. For example, more retail investors will have the right to participate in blockchain verification. "

However, some people think that Ethereum under the POS mechanism actually violates the spirit of the blockchain, that is, the principle of decentralization. In addition, under the POS mechanism, users need to pledge their opportunities to participate in blockchain verification by pledge their assets. Some people also believe that it will make it difficult for users to participate in verification anonymous and expose privacy.

Jiang Zhaosheng believes that there is no absolutely fair existence in any system. "In the Internet, we can only ensure fairness and so -called 'decentralization' as much as possible." He explained that "the system will balance the probability through algorithms to balance probability of probability. For example, you just participated in a node verification yesterday and received the corresponding cryptocurrency reward. Then the algorithm will tend to choose other people tomorrow. "Ethereum merged can become a hot -discussing event, which is inseparable from the encryption with the topic behind it. currency market. According to CoinMarketcap data, as of 4 pm on September 16, the global cryptocurrency market value was about $ 987.9 billion, of which the market value of Ethereum was about $ 1803, and the price of a single Ethereum was about $ 1,471.

But since May this year, the cryptocurrency market has encountered a huge shock, many cryptocurrencies have nearly a limit, and the currency circle is mourning. Jiang Zhaosheng also believes that "the market will not have a new round of rise due to the merger of Ethereum."

It is reported that after the merger was completed, the price of a single Ethereum climbed to $ 1643, but then fluctuated. "But in the long run, if the performance of the entire development network has been further improved, its application layer will definitely develop greatly, so the market may still have a lot of room for rise." Jiang Zhaosheng said.

Daily Economic News

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