Ethereum , like
bitcoin, currently uses an energy-intensive process called “mining” to create and distribute new cryptocurrency. The
thousands of people globally who help make that happen, known as miners, operate millions of dollars worth of machinery in a race to solve computational problems and earn ETH, the network’s native cryptocurrency.
But at some point within the next year, Ethereum will undergo a major upgrade that will fundamentally change how the network operates and how new ETH is created. Ethereum mining will become a thing of the past.
So where will all the Ethereum miners go?
The Proof
When the Bitcoin white paper was released in 2008, it borrowed a cryptographic concept as a way of making a decentralized network safe for sending money: proof of work.
The Ethereum blockchain, launched in 2015, uses that same consensus protocol. In a nutshell, it's a way for making sure the computers agree on the transactions and the status of the database at any given time. This secures the network from attacks that could allow funds to be spent multiple times.
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