Buterin Defends Ethereum's Shift from PoW to PoS

Vitalik Buterin recently addressed comments on social media from Ethereum users who favored the network's former proof-of-work (PoW) system over the current proof-of-stake (PoS) method. Buterin, the young visionary behind Ethereum's creation in 2013, clarified that PoW had its centralization issues, which were overlooked because it was always intended as a temporary step towards PoS.

He explained that the anticipated switch to PoS deterred the development of specialized mining hardware, making it uneconomic to pursue such technology. Buterin illustrated his point with a pie chart detailing how mining was dominated by a few large pools: SparkPool led with 33%, Ethermine at 21%, and F2Pool at 11%. The PoW system involved miners solving complex calculations to validate transactions, consuming significant energy.

By switching to PoS, where transactions are verified through staked tokens, Ethereum drastically cut its energy use by 99.5% following The Merge in September 2022, as reported by The Block. This shift reduced the blockchain's environmental impact and highlighted the continuing debates over blockchain's best practices regarding decentralization, security, and sustainability.