Blockchain Briefing — Ethereum Merge Completion
Ethereum executed the Merge on September 15, 2022, transitioning mainnet consensus to Proof-of-Stake, reducing energy consumption by ~99% and introducing validator operations that impact smart contract deployment policies.
Executive briefing: The Ethereum Foundation confirmed the Merge completed on , joining the Beacon Chain with Ethereum mainnet. Proof-of-Stake now secures the network, reshaping validator infrastructure, staking requirements, and smart contract governance obligations.
Key outcomes
- Proof-of-Stake consensus. Mining is deprecated in favor of validators staking 32 ETH, altering node operations and incident response plans.
- Energy reduction. Foundation telemetry reports ~99.95% energy savings, unlocking sustainability commitments for enterprise blockchain pilots.
- Finality and fork choice updates. New fork-choice rules and finality checkpoints require monitoring for inactivity leaks and validator performance.
- Smart contract stability. Execution layer APIs remain backward compatible, but tooling must handle new terminal total difficulty (TTD) checkpoints.
Implementation guidance
- Update infrastructure runbooks to manage validator key rotation, slashing protections, and MEV-Boost configurations.
- Review sustainability reporting tied to blockchain workloads to capture the Merge energy reductions.
- Validate chain monitoring, block explorers, and analytics dashboards against Proof-of-Stake telemetry.