Here’s Why Ethereum Merge Could Create a Huge Centralization Problem

cryptonews.com:

Ethereum is transitioning to a more sustainable architecture — the long-awaited Merge. The project, which is said to be the culmination of nearly three years of work on the Ethereum blockchain, is expected to be one of the most pivotal events in the history of the crypto industry.

Although many believe that the Ethereum Merge should mark a new beginning for a network already used by millions, there are concerns about the transition to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and what it could mean for the blockchain's future.

The Merge, set to take place on Thursday, September 15, is the most significant development to hit the Ethereum blockchain since its inception and one of the biggest upgrades in the history of crypto. The Merge is expected to resolve several problems, most notably the scalability issue.

Scalability has been a problem for the Ethereum blockchain since its inception, with the blockchain designed to handle only about 30 transactions per second. 

Although this was initially sufficient, the explosive growth of blockchains in recent years has rendered it insufficient. Hundreds of thousands of decentralized applications (dApps) are currently processing transactions on the Ethereum blockchain but it is significantly underperforming at its current throughput.

This scalability issue has drawn developers to several 'Ethereum Killers' - particularly options like Solana (65,000 transactions per second) and Polkadot (more than 1,000 transactions a second)

However, the Merge will finally include sharding, a scalability feature that will divide the blockchain into multiple chains. Each chain will operate independently and validate transactions on its own. 

The implementation of sharding is expected to increase the blockchain's throughput to