Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated on social media platform X that the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm was merely a temporary phase in the project’s transition to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).
PoW was also quite centralized. It was just not talked about as much, because everyone knew it was only a temporary stage until PoS.
And that doesn’t even get into how we probably mostly avoided ASICs only because the upcoming PoS switch meant no incentive to build them. pic.twitter.com/OhaqmRiiGJ
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) April 26, 2024
According to a user under the pseudonym amanda.eth, many Ethereum community members allegedly express support for PoW in private conversations, despite the project’s shift to PoS.
“Why would anyone want Proof-of-Work if they want the best for Ethereum? They realize the network needed to shed that ‘energy-guzzling casino’ brand, right?” wrote a user named Emmanuel Awosika.
Buterin added that PoW was “also quite centralized.”
“It was just not talked about as much, because everyone knew it was only a temporary stage until PoS. And that doesn’t even get into how we probably mostly avoided ASIC miners only because there was no incentive to build them due to the upcoming PoS switch,” he explained.
In September 2022, Ethereum developers transitioned the blockchain to Proof-of-Stake as part of the major upgrade known as The Merge. Since then, the network’s energy consumption has decreased by more than 99%.
In March 2024, Buterin stated that the next five years are “crucial” for Ethereum’s mass adoption and its acceptance in the “real world.”
In April, he discussed the next phase of the project’s roadmap — The Purge. This phase aims to simplify the network’s structure and reduce the load on nodes.