Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin Defends Switch To PoS

Amid growing internal wrangling within the Ethereum community, the protocol’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin has offered some explanations for defending the network’s switch from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Specifically, his response came as a direct reaction to an X post from American entrepreneur Amanda Cassatt.

Ethereum Community Members Questioning PoS Switch

Cassatt claimed to have noticed how many Ethereum community members are privately expressing their displeasure about the network’s transition to PoS. She went on to recant how some community members wish that Ethereum had stuck with the PoW consensus algorithm. 

As a boost to support the reasons behind the switch to PoS, one X user openly asked a question that suggested that the PoS switch is the best decision for the Ethereum network. 

“why would anyone want Proof of Work if they wanted the best for Ethereum?” the X user asked “They realize the network needed to ditch that “energy guzzling casino” brand, right?”

Joining the conversation, Buterin highlighted that the PoW algorithm is centralized, even though not so many people talk about it. This suggest that the PoS switch was also in pursuit of network decentralization. The Ethereum co-founder explicitly stated that PoW was only a temporary phase that preceded PoS and quite a number of entities were aware of this position. 

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

Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market capitalization, utilizes the PoW consensus algorithm and has seen significant performance over the years including an all-time-high (ATH) of more than $73,000. While the Ethereum community may not appreciate the network’s PoS transition, the argument of the core developers remains that this new mechanism has what it takes to give the blockchain its most optimized performance boost.

Buterin also talked about the negligence that was attached to conversations surrounding Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). The Ethereum innovator attributed this to certain concerns of how the PoS would mean an unavailability of incentive to build them. 

The Ultimate Switch From PoW to PoS

To put the current conversations into proper perspective, Ethereum underwent the transition, which was called The Merge, more than one year ago. 

This event encompassed mainnet (execution layer) merge with the Beacon Chain (consensus layer), thereby transitioning Ethereum from PoW to PoS. In addition, it meant that Ethereum had to do away with its miners as the PoS mechanism required validators instead who would only stake a certain amount of ETH to add blocks to the blockchain.

Amongst the benefits tied to the transition, it was highlighted that The Merge will reduce Ethereum’s energy consumption by 99.95%. During one of the Ethereum Community Conferences, Buterin noted that the long-awaited merge is capable of completing about 55% of Ethereum’s growth plan.