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Chainlink ditches Ethereum PoW forks for PoS after the Merge

The Merge will affect Ethereum's smart contracts worth 1.45 million. Developers are advised to plan their migration strategies accordingly

By Shashank Bhardwaj

Published: Aug 10, 2022 07:10:22 PM IST

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In an official notification, Chainlink, a decentralised blockchain oracle network built on Ethereum, announced that following the awaited switch of from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) on Ethereum, it will not offer support for forked versions of the Ethereum blockchain.

The announcement read:

"Users should be aware that forked versions of the Ethereum blockchain, including PoW forks, will not be supported by the Chainlink protocol. This is aligned with both the Ethereum Foundation and broader Ethereum community's decision, achieved via social consensus, to upgrade the Ethereum blockchain to PoS consensus."

Chainlink is a top Ethereum network provider of smart contract infrastructure with a sizable presence in the Defi, enterprise, and NFT & gaming sectors. The Merge was earlier scheduled to be in mid-2021. However, now the Beacon Chain and Ethereum mainnet will be merged during this upgrade in mid-September 2022. As a result, all activities on the Ethereum network will switch from PoW to PoS.

As scheduled by developers, Phase 1 will begin migrating the ecosystem's transaction history and smart contracts to the PoS network. The Merge will impact all the Ethereum smart contracts worth 1.45 million as of Q1 2022.

The Ethereum mainnet Merge is a significant turning point in the crypto industry. The transition from PoW to PoS will help Ethereum blockchain achieve sustainability, scalability, and improved decentralisation.

To prevent future problems during and after the adoption of PoS, Chainlink recommended all Ethereum developers and dApp teams make the necessary strategies for their smart contract operations. Chainlink said,

"dApps operating on forked versions of Ethereum, including PoW forks, might behave in unexpected ways due to both protocol and application-level issues, introducing increased risk for users."

After implementing the PoS protocol, Ethereum's energy consumption will drop by 99.5 percent. Earlier it was reported that the total energy used by the Ethereum network was equal to the energy used by the whole Netherlands. Critics, however, speculate that PoS is less secure and more prone to security breaches.

Despite such speculations, major networks like Polkadot, Solana, Cardano, and Avalanche all use PoS blockchains to operate at the moment. As the Merge draws near, Ethereum's native token, Ether, is experiencing price increases of up to 50 percent against Bitcoin.

Shashank is the founder at yMedia. He ventured into crypto in 2013 and is an ETH maximalist.