{"id":43069,"date":"2021-05-24T17:30:22","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T14:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=43069"},"modified":"2025-08-31T01:59:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T22:59:29","slug":"developer-predicts-a-99-95-drop-in-ethereums-energy-use-after-pow-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/developer-predicts-a-99-95-drop-in-ethereums-energy-use-after-pow-switch\/","title":{"rendered":"Developer predicts a 99.95% drop in Ethereum\u2019s energy use after PoW switch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Energy costs to maintain the Ethereum blockchain could fall by about 2,000-fold following the transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. This assessment was provided by ETH2 developer Karl Beekhuizen.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">By my (very conservative) calculations, Ethereum will see a greater than ~99.95% reduction in energy use post merge.<\/p>\n<p>Dig into the details here: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/BOiilkZm5a\">https:\/\/t.co\/BOiilkZm5a<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 carlbeek.eth (@CarlBeek) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CarlBeek\/status\/1394608161244520452?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 18, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>According to the expert, there are currently 140,592 validators in the second version of the Ethereum protocol, or 87,897 if staking services and exchanges are excluded.<\/p>\n<p>According to rough calculations by Beekhuizen, Beacon Chain&#8217;s energy consumption stands at 2.62 MW, including 1.64 MW attributed to solo stakers.<\/p>\n<p>The first figure is equivalent to the energy costs of a small U.S. city for about 2,100 homes. In other words, it is not appropriate to compare it with megacities, individual entities, or states as a whole, which is typical for Proof-of-Work.<\/p>\n<p>The developer noted that under Proof-of-Stake, network security rises as the token&#8217;s price increases, while electricity costs remain unchanged. This does not occur with Proof-of-Work, in which there is a close positive correlation between hash rate and price.<\/p>\n<p>Beekhuizen reminded of Digiconomist&#8217;s estimates of Ethereum miners&#8217; energy consumption \u2014 44.5 TWh per year. His calculations imply that ETH2&#8217;s energy costs will be reduced by 2,000x.<\/p>\n<p>For illustration, the expert provided a chart comparing the average per-transaction indicator across the networks of Bitcoin, ETH1 and ETH2.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ETH2-5-1024x761.png\" alt=\"\u0420\u0430\u0437\u0440\u0430\u0431\u043e\u0442\u0447\u0438\u043a \u043f\u0440\u0435\u0434\u0441\u043a\u0430\u0437\u0430\u043b \u043f\u0430\u0434\u0435\u043d\u0438\u0435 \u044d\u043d\u0435\u0440\u0433\u043e\u043f\u043e\u0442\u0440\u0435\u0431\u043b\u0435\u043d\u0438\u044f \u043d\u0430 99,95% \u043f\u043e\u0441\u043b\u0435 \u043e\u0442\u043a\u0430\u0437\u0430 Ethereum \u043e\u0442 PoW\" class=\"wp-image-136437\" width=\"840\" height=\"624\" srcset=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ETH2-5-1024x761.png 1024w, https:\/\/u1f987.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ETH2-5-300x223.png 300w, https:\/\/u1f987.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ETH2-5-768x571.png 768w, https:\/\/u1f987.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ETH2-5.png 1060w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px\" \/><figcaption>Data: <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.ethereum.org\/2021\/05\/18\/country-power-no-more\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ethereum.org.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Leading ETH2 developer Danny Ryan, speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2021-05-23\/ethereum-closes-in-on-long-sought-fix-to-cut-energy-use-over-99\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bloomberg<\/a>, gave even more optimistic estimates than Beekhuizen: the savings would be 10,000x, rather than 2,000x.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u201cI will be happy when the transition happens. One of the biggest problems will be resolved,\u201d<\/em> commented Vitalik Buterin.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He expressed hope that the changes would take place by the end of the year. Skeptics say it is more realistic to target the first half of 2022.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u201cBy combining Proof-of-Stake and a growing DeFi ecosystem, Ethereum will continue to take market share from Bitcoin,\u201d<\/em> said Pantera Capital founder Dan Morehead.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Earlier, Buterin predicted <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/vitalik-buterin-warns-of-market-bubble-and-doubts-bitcoins-primacy\">the lag of digital gold<\/a> without improving its energy efficiency.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, the Ethereum co-founder <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/vitalik-buterin-criticises-elon-musks-dogecoin-scalability-plan\">criticised<\/a> Elon Musk&#8217;s plan to scale Dogecoin.<\/p>\n<p> Subscribe to ForkLog&#8217;s channel on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCC9FnXTC8_ENzaNSO5cHQ6g\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> YouTube<\/a>! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Energy costs to maintain the Ethereum blockchain could be reduced by about 2,000x after the transition from PoW to PoS, according to ETH2 developer Karl Beekhuizen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18,46,77,76,200],"class_list":["post-43069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bitcoin","tag-ethereum","tag-proof-of-stake","tag-proof-of-work","tag-vitalik-buterin"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"12","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43071,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43069\/revisions\/43071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}