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On Sept. 15 last year, Ethereum implemented the historic Merge upgrade, which ushered in the transition from the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism to the proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism.
The upgrade undoubtedly ushered in a new era for Ethereum, making it environmentally friendly and a deflationary currency.
To commemorate the first anniversary of the pivotal upgrade, top crypto exchange Binance took to X to share the milestones reached since the Merge upgrade.
Binance discusses the changes experienced since the upgrade, using an image attached to its post. Nearly one million ETH have been burned, compared to the 680,000 ETH issued.
According to the Ethereum analytics dashboard, Ultrasound Money, Ethereum has burned 980,377 ETH while minting 680,455 ETH. Consequently, supply has decreased by nearly 300,000 ETH since the switch to proof of stake.
More than 22% of ETH is now staked. Gas fees, although they were not impacted by the Merge upgrade, stood on average at 24.9 gwei.
Ethereum has slashed its energy requirements by 99.99%. The PoS mechanism burns a percentage of the transaction fees collected from users. Validators are paid a priority fee or a top that users add to the base to persuade validators to favor transactions. Meanwhile, the base fee is consumed, removing Ether from circulation.
Ethereum researcher "Sassal ETH" took to X to celebrate the milestones achieved by the largest smart contract network since the Merge. Aside from 980,000 ETH burned since the upgrade, 11.6 million ETH have been staked, and 362,000 new validators have been added.
On the other hand, ETH's price is only slightly up 1.9% yearly, according to CoinGecko data, and currently trades at $1,621.
In positive news, Ethereum is set to welcome its newest testnet, Holesky, as the Goerli testnet nears sunset.
Denys Serhiichuk
