The Merge is here.

The long-awaited update of the Ethereum platform - the internet of crypto space - has finally arrived after many years of rumors and preparations.

Crypto evangelists say that it will completely shake up the industry as Ethereum is at the center of everything that is done around this young economy which wants to be completely decentralized and break with what is done today.

Why Is Ethereum Important?
A little reminder first: Ethereum is the second crypto platform after Bitcoin. Like Bitcoin, this ecosystem has a native token known as ether (ETH).

Ether is the second largest cryptocurrency by market value with a market capitalization of $195 billion at the time of this writing, according to CoinGecko. Bitcoin (BTC) is the first cryptocurrency with a market value of $384.2 billion. Between them, BTC and ETH represent 56% of the cryptocurrency market which is currently valued at $1.03 trillion. BTC has a market share of 37.2%, while ETH's market share is almost 19%.

Finally, to better understand what Ethereum represents, it should simply be said that the platform is the place where decentralized finance apps (DeFi) are developed. DeFi offers classic financial services such as loans, trading, insurance, etc. But there's a major difference with classic banks and financial firms: there are no middlemen.

On Ethereum are also manufactured, or minted the famous non-fungible tokens or NFTs, which are considered the future of art and intellectual property.

Finally, the developers are also working on different uses of blockchain technology.

Basically, Ethereum is a kind of fair where you can find everything that the crypto industry offers or is working on.

But there are problems.

The Problems that the Merge Will Solve
The first of these problems is that the mechanism for validating transactions - which ensures the security of the Ethereum ecosystem - consumes a lot of energy.

This system known as proof-of-work is highly criticized by climate activists. This thus prevents large investors from investing as they really would like in the crypto industry to avoid violating the trendy acronym ESG - Environmental, social and corporate governance. It should be remembered that the Bitcoin ecosystem also uses proof-of-work.
Source: TheStreet
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