Popular Canadian actor William Shatner, who is popular for playing the role of Admiral James T. Kirk in the Star Trek film, has joined the list of people applauding the Ethereum Merge. The actor expressed his support for Ethereum and its co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, for completing the Merge successfully.
Star Trek star applauds the Ethereum Merge
The Ethereum Merge was completed successfully on September 15. The upgrade saw the Ethereum blockchain switch from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. While giving his address, Shatner discussed the environmental benefits of ditching the energy-intensive proof-of-work consensus mechanism and switching to proof-of-stake.
The Ethereum Merge lowered the energy consumption of the Ethereum network by 99.9%, as predicted in most studies, including one by the World Economic Forum. PoW, a consensus used by Bitcoin, has been under intense criticism by environmentalists calling out its high energy consumption when governments and global bodies are fighting climate change.
The transition of Ethereum to PoS is also expected to boost the relevance of the coin among institutional investors. Institutional Investors have been vocal about the effects of the PoW consensus on the environment, but with the second-largest cryptocurrency switching to PoS, there is bound to be a high number of institutional investors seeking exposure to the asset.
The Ethereum Merge has been hailed as one of the most important events in crypto. The Ethereum community is especially bullish, as a continuous upgrade of the network in the coming years is also expected to solve other issues like congestion and high transaction fees.
The Merge has been in the works over the years, and after several delays, the upgrade finally went live on September 15. However, Ether’s price is yet to react positively to the news of the Merge. The token has plunged from around $1600 when the Merge happened to around $1300 since
Ethereum Merge raises serious issues
While the Merge has gone on successfully, the crypto community has raised serious issues regarding the upgrade. One problem that has occurred is the growing discussions that Ethereum has become a centralized network.
During the first days of the Merge, it became apparent that over 40% of the network’s PoS nodes in the Ethereum network were controlled by only two wallet addresses. This raised questions over whether the Merge was transitioning Ethereum from being decentralized to centralized.
The classification of Ether as a token or security has also been a contentious discussion following the Merge. The chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, has hinted that with Ethereum operating under a PoS consensus, it could now be ranked as a security.
While the official did not mention Ethereum, he said that tokens operating under the PoS mechanism could be considered securities. Gensler added that the mechanism of receiving revenues after staking cryptocurrencies fits the Howey test of determining whether an asset is a security.
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