Remember when you were browsing the web at work, occasionally checking crypto prices in between social media breaks, and the phrase “Ethereum Merge” suddenly appeared everywhere? You’re not alone.
According to Google Trends data, people worldwide have been so eager to learn more about the Ethereum Merge that in the last 2 weeks, Google searches for this term have spiked to unprecedented highs.
At the beginning of March, “Ethereum Merge” was only about 21% as popular as it is now. By March 20, it had hit an all-time high in global popularity.
Because Canada has had the greatest number of searches over the last 365 days, Trends has assigned the country a value of 100, indicating that it has received the highest possible score for searches of “Ethereum Merge” among the general public.
From March 13 to March 19, the word reached its highest level of popularity in Canada. By March 26, however, it had fallen to 39 percent of its previous level.
The Australian population came in second as Australians made 84% of the searches Canadians did in the past year.
Singaporeans finished third. They were 80% as interested in the “Ethereum Merge” as Canadians were. The United States came in fourth, with roughly 76% as curious as Canadians.
Meanwhile, the populations of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands came in fifth and sixth place, respectively, with both groups making roughly 52% of the searches as Canadians.
In the United Kingdom, “Ethereum Merge” was at about 43% of its peak popularity on March 6. It wasn’t until March 13 that the term’s popularity began to rise, and after that it reached its peak.
It should be mentioned that the “Ethereum Merge” has piqued the interest of British citizens in the past. For example, during the period of December 19 to December 25, 2021, the phrase was approximately 99% as popular in the United Kingdom as it is today.
Google Trends lists “Proof of Stake,” “Ethereum merge date,” and “Ethereum 2.0 release date” as related search terms. This is unsurprising given how interconnected all of these topics are.
What exactly is the Merge?
The Merge may sound like a step on humanity’s path to The Singularity, but it’s not as frightening as it sounds. Consider it the next step in Ethereum 2.0, which has recently been renamed “consensus layer.”
Ethereum, like Bitcoin, currently has a consensus mechanism called proof-of-work (PoW). This means that Ethereum miners (computers that run 24 hours a day) with the most computing power get to validate the most transactions on the blockchain and get rewards for it. This method has also received a great deal of criticism due to the large amount of energy it consumes.
During the Merge, Ethereum’s mainnet will “merge” with Beacon Chain, a proof-of-stake (PoS) system. The Ethereum validators (miners are no longer allowed to participate in this network) who stake the most cryptocurrency will be the ones to validate the most transactions.
The Ethereum Foundation also claims that 2.0 will address the well-known scalability issues with Ethereum. The network currently handles about 30 transactions per second (TPS), but that is expected to increase to 100,000 after the Merge. Improved scalability will also reduce the network’s high gas fees.
According to the Foundation, this mechanism will also reduce the network’s energy consumption by 99.95%.
ConsenSys CEO and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin stated this year at Decrypt’s Camp Ethereal summit, “The merge will lay to rest proof-of-work, will lay to rest Ethereum’s carbon or energy footprint problem, that all goes away.”
Lubin also stated that Ethereum 2.0 is still expected to launch this year “by Q2 or possibly slipping into Q3.”