After the Merge, the Chainlink (LINK) protocol will no longer support forked versions of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, including Proof of Work (PoW) forks but will switch to the Proof of Stake (PoS) versions.
The Chainlink protocol has announced that its services would continue to operate on the Ethereum blockchain following the eagerly anticipated Merge. The Beacon Chain and Ethereum mainnet will be merged during the Merge in September 2022, according to the Ethereum blockchain.
All Ethereum activities will switch from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). The Merge has previously been postponed from mid-2021 to September 2022. Phase 1 will begin migrating the ecosystem’s transaction history and smart contracts to the PoS network if things proceed according to the developers’ schedule.
This change will all impact the 1.45 million smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain as of Q1 2022. The provision of hybrid smart contract services by Chainlink is not an exception.
In order to prevent further problems before and after the introduction of PoS, Chainlink recommended its customers arrange their smart contract activities appropriately in its most recent notification.
A significant turning point in the cryptocurrency market was the Ethereum Merge. The community has focused heavily on the switch from PoW to PoS as a means of achieving sustainability, scalability, and improved decentralization.
The network would use 99.5 percent less energy after it switches to PoS, according to the Ethereum website. Previously, according to the official website, Ethereum’s total energy consumption was compared to that of the whole nation of the Netherlands.
PoS is less secure, according to detractors of such a protocol swap, making security breaches more likely. Presently, the majority of significant networks, including Cardano, Avalanche, Polkadot, and Solana, use proof of stake blockchains.
The ecosystem’s native cryptocurrency, Ether, is experiencing price increases of up to 50% against Bitcoin (BTC) as The Merge draws near.