This is how Ethereum will work now, the cryptocurrency that went 'green'

Until last September, keeping the Ethereum cryptocurrency running involved an energy expenditure

.

Almost 72,000 gigawatt hours per year were used to 'mine' the different tokens and validate the movements made by their users in the block chain.

Today, Ethereum is a very different cryptocurrency.

On September 15, its managers completed the so-called "merger", a transition that has been planned for eight years and that has changed the mechanism used by Ethereum users to guarantee its proper functioning.

The result?

The energy cost to keep the project running -and therefore the associated CO2 emissions-

.

According to calculations by the consulting firm Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute, with the expected level of activity of the currency, which is used as a safeguard for what are known as smart contracts and is behind the recent NFT fever, it will barely consume 2 gigawatt hours per year.

This 'merger' is a change in the model in which the currency is structured.

Ethereum started life in 2013 as a

cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin.

In order to generate new tokens or register an operation on its public blockchain, it was necessary to carry out complex calculations with a high computational cost.

This consensus mechanism is known in the crypto world as mining, since the machine that manages to solve these calculations is rewarded with a coin or token.

It's like finding a gold nugget after spending a whole day breaking stone.

This system makes it possible not to depend on a central entity that validates the different transactions and, in the case of digital money, certifies

.

It is a way that all parts of a decentralized system can operate without implicitly trusting each other.

But when

created Ethereum, he also envisioned a future evolution of this model to one known as

.

This consensus model is not based on solving complex calculations that require having hundreds of computers working at full capacity for days solving cryptographic problems, but the network users themselves earn the right to validate a given transaction by delegating some of the coins or tokens that they already have as collateral.

Although in a proof-of-stake model there is still a computational proof, the difficulty of this varies based on the amount of the delegated coins and the time for which they are delegated,

and, therefore, reducing the consumption.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both models and in both cases someone with bad intentions can compromise the network if they manage to play an important role in the consensus process.

In the case of a proof-of-work based model this means having more than 51% of the total processing capacity of the network.

In the case of a proof-of-stake model,

.

According to Buterin, this last option is less likely to happen in a cryptocurrency, especially one as widespread and diverse as Ethereum, so the jump to the new model makes sense and in theory it will also reduce the cost and commissions of operations within the chain of blocks (which in the case of Ethereum are called gas).

Now the question is whether the example will motivate other currencies to follow a similar path.

Especially

, which due to its popularity and continuing to use a proof-of-work model, generates an abysmal energy expenditure.

Despite the drop in price and use, it consumes

, equivalent to the energy consumption of a country like Sweden.

There are several initiatives to try to guarantee that part of this consumption comes from renewable sources, but it is a problem that is difficult to solve.

It is highly unlikely that Bitcoin will switch to a proof-of-stake consensus system as the protocol was designed from the beginning with a proof-of-work model in mind and

.

Such a profound change would also bring uncertainty to a currency that has already proven incredibly volatile even when everything is going according to plan.

Conforms to The Trust Project criteria

Know more

• Bitcoin

• cryptocurrencies