The Ethereum merge upgrade, which primarily aimed to transform the blockchain into a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, has proven to have a positive impact on the creation of new Ethereum blocks.
The merge was seen as one of the most significant upgrades for Ethereum. As a result of the hype, the crypto ecosystem has been plagued by numerous misconceptions surrounding cheaper gas fees and faster transactions, which have been debunked by Cointelegraph. However, some of the obvious improvements seen in blockchain post-merge include a steep increase in daily block creation and a significant decrease in average block time.
Ethereum blocks per day. Source: YCharts
On September 15, Ethereum completed the merge upgrade after successfully moving the network to PoS. On the same day, the number of daily blocks created increased by about 18% – from about 6,000 blocks to 7,100 blocks per day.
Ethereum Average Block Time (EBT). Source: YCharts
Complementing this move, the average block time — the time it takes for miners or validators within a network to verify transactions — has fallen by over 13% for Ethereum, according to data from YCharts.
The results above demonstrate the positive impact of the merge upgrade on the Ethereum blockchain.
Related: Ethereum Merge “executed without errors,” says Starkware co-founder
Following the Ethereum upgrade, GPU prices in China saw a significant drop as the blockchain moved away from the power-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism.
As Cointelegraph reported, the price of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 dropped from 8,000 yuan, or $1,118 US dollars, to 5,000 yuan in three months, according to a Chinese retailer. The retailer went on to explain that no one buys new computers in China, let alone new GPUs.