Top Narratives About Ethereum and Its Merge with Its Proof-of-Stake Beacon Chain

cryptonews.com:

Ethereum (ETH) has launched Kiln, the final testnet its development community will use prior to the blockchain network's long-awaited transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Now that Kiln has gone live, it should be more or less only a matter of time before Ethereum will complete its ‘merge’ with the PoS beacon chain, which is due in Q2 2022.

This merge -- which will see Ethereum’s original execution/settlement layer integrate with the beacon chain’s new consensus layer -- is likely to be one of the biggest events in the crypto sector in 2022. However, as exciting as it will be for the Ethereum and wider crypto communities, it won’t be without its controversies and misconceptions, while there’s also a good chance that it could reignite the ongoing rivalry between Bitcoin (BTC)/proof-of-work (PoW) and Ethereum/PoS maximalists.

Cryptonews.com has asked Ethereum developers and community members, as well as industry players outside of the Ethereum community what to expect, and what not to expect, from the transition.

“I think there are a lot of misconceptions around the merge, not only from Bitcoiners. The biggest ones are probably around decentralization, security, and fairness,” said Ethereum developer Marius van der Wijden.

Indeed, in the months (not to mention years) preceding the merge, there have been plenty of disputes related to proof-of-stake. One particular contention is that PoS isn’t really decentralized, in that it simply allows the already-rich to buy up large stakes and effectively control the network, with consolidation resulting.

Of course, this isn’t a view shared by the developers and coders working on Ethereum’s particular version of PoS, which according to van der Wijden can’t simply be