Recently on September 15, the Ethereum blockchain successfully finished the upgrade to a proof-of-stake algorithm from its older proof-of-work one. This event is broadly known as The Merge. Reportedly, post-Merge the daily production of blocks on the Ethereum blockchain increased by around 18% on the same day, rising from about 6,000 to 7,100 blocks per day. Additionally, according to statistics from YCharts, Ethereum’s average block time fell by about 13% around the same time as well.
Average block time on Ethereum| YCharts
A sharp rise in the number of blocks produced daily combined with a noticeably shorter average block time are just two of the apparent benefits the Ethereum blockchain has achieved since the Merge. What’s more, within just a day of the Merge upgrade, PC and GPU mining of crypto had been rendered unprofitable. Reportedly, GPU value in China witnessed a steep downfall right after the blockchain ditched the energy-intensive proof-of-work algorithm.
As a matter of fact, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080’s price dropped from 8,000 yuan (around 1,118 in USD) to an estimated 5,000 yuan within just three months. According to a Chinese merchant, the Chinese populace is refraining from buying computers in general, so purchasing GPUs is completely out of the question.