Historical retrospective · Ethereum
The Merge replaced Ethereum’s proof-of-work consensus
On September 15, 2022, Ethereum’s execution history joined the Beacon Chain and block production moved to proof-of-stake validators.
The change stopped proof-of-work mining on Ethereum mainnet while preserving transaction history and application state.
The Merge was the culmination of years of testing, staged deployment and coordination across independent client teams.
It changed consensus and energy use, but did not itself make Ethereum faster or cheaper for users; scaling remained separate work.
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