As the Merge draws near, Polygon hopes to remove a significant amount of carbon trace from its system.
Just around the corner is Ethereum Merge. With a soft deadline set on September 15, the world will soon find out whether or not the developers’ hopes for a positive change are realized.
Merge will bring about changes to the Ethereum-based Polygon Blockchain. The Merge, in a nutshell, is the transformation from Proof-of-work (PoW), to Proof-of-stake. The Ethereum network will use less energy with this update.
If you take Chile’s annual electricity consumption of 77.53 TWh and apply it to the current annual electricity usage of the Ethereum network, you get a pretty good idea of how much power is being used.
Polygon’s Burden: Cutting Carbon Footprint
The network’s carbon footprint is comparable to that of Hong Kong (which is 43.24 MT CO2), so it’s quite sizable.
Based on research by Polygon, the network is responsible for 0.48 percent of Ethereum’s total carbon footprint of 12,721,000 metric tons of carbon equivalent. This is valid between August 2021 and July 2022.
That’s the equivalent of creating 60,930 tons of carbon dioxide. Polygon noted the difficulties in this task, noting the fact that the company must account for emissions from its L1 chain.
As a result, the progress Ethereum has made toward a (almost) emission-free system will have a significant effect on Polygon’s emission rates.
Polygon did the math for the post-merge as well. Polygon will have 50.22 tonnes less carbon emissions if it reduces its energy consumption.
This is to put it in context: The projected annualized post-merge energy use for 2021-2022 will be 0.82 per cent lower than the annualized pre-merge energy usage figures.
Expectations and Hype About The Merge Intensify
This connection with Ethereum may have an impact on the price of MATIC, Polygon’s native token. The merger has been speculated by traders. The result was that investor sentiment may have been low for Ethereum, which could indicate low investor confidence.
According to Coingecko data, the Polygon team’s press day release of the blog post about the merger was met with fear.
Since the announcement’s day, MATIC has seen a significant rebound in its price. MATIC’s price has exactly tracked the dip and surge in the price of ETH since Polygon’s blog post.
Confusion and hype are the forces propelling the ETH price surge and retreat.
Merge is threatening the future of Ethereum-based network and Ethereum itself.
MATIC Total market Cap at $6.5 Billon on Daily Chart | Source: TradingView.com Image taken from Blockchain News. Chart from TradingView.com