At 06:42:42 UTC on September 15, 2022, the mining pool F2Pool sealed Ethereum block 15,537,3935. That block was the last one made by proof of work. Seventeen seconds later, a validator proposed block 15,537,394 in slot 4,700,0136. Ethereum had switched to proof of stake12.
Proof of work pays miners who spend electricity to win the right to make blocks12. Under proof of stake, validators who lock up ether and vote on blocks earn the rewards. The swap was called the Merge, and Danny Ryan of the Ethereum Foundation was a lead coordinator of it, The Block later wrote9.
The power numbers changed in one step. In August 2022, the mining network drew 2,565 megawatts, the Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute estimated7. After the Merge, CCRI put the whole network at 2,600.86 MWh a year, down from 22,900,320 MWh. That is a cut of 99.988 percent.
Eight months, he guessed
In the spring of 2018, Aya Miyaguchi asked Ryan when proof of stake would be done. He had just started at the Foundation8. His answer, as he recalled it in February 2023: "8 months". He undershot "to a comical degree," he wrote.
The first piece shipped on December 1, 2020. Ryan's own post set the Beacon Chain's start for 12:00:23 UTC on December 1, 2020, after 16,384 validators had deposited1. “I couldn't be more excited to see the Ethereum community finally bootstrap this new proof-of-stake consensus mechanism,” he wrote on November 27, 2020. The same post pointed new stakers to the EthStaker Discord for help.
That chain ran beside the old one for 21 months. The Foundation then set the switch in two parts4. Bellatrix came on the Beacon Chain at epoch 144896 on September 6, 2022. Paris followed when mining hit a total difficulty of 58750000000000000000000. Etherscan shows block 15,537,393 reaching that mark5.
Ryan also warned about where stake might pool. In May 2022 he wrote that liquid staking protocols "are a stratum for cartelization" past certain shares of stake2. Lido was his named example.
Both sides, in their own words
Was the switch worth what it cost miners?
“Shifting to proof-of-stake took a bit longer than any of us expected”
“I asked around and found the merger could lead to many miners losing their businesses, and some of them without covering their costs”
The coordinator's job
Ryan's reflections describe 2022 as a year with one goal. In his words, "the core mission was abundantly clear: end proof-of-work"8. “Shifting to proof-of-stake took a bit longer than any of us expected,” he wrote.
Coordination meant herding many teams. Node operators had to update their consensus and execution clients in tandem, the Foundation's announcement said4. In February 2023, Ryan named the next fight. He wrote that Ethereum was “primed to finally shift mainnet usage numbers away from 80%+ geth dominance throughout 2023”8.
CCRI's report described the same strain from outside. The Merge was designed for "a seamless switch between the consensus mechanisms," the institute wrote7. Several teams built the clients, so any mix of them had to be tested.
What the coverage missed
The Foundation's August 24, 2022 announcement of the date is signed by its Protocol Support Team alone4. Its post for the Beacon Chain launch in 2020, by contrast, carries Ryan's name1.
When Ryan stepped back on September 13, 2024, The Block covered the news9. Its story said he oversaw the launch of the Beacon Chain in 2021. His own post, dated November 27, 2020, set that launch for December 1, 20201.
Validators and watts
The new system grew fast. Beaconscan counted 27,507 validators on December 1, 202013. By September 1, 2022, two weeks before the Merge, it counted 421,870. On October 1, 2026, its total stood at 2,376,069.
Ethereum's validator count grew from 27,507 on Dec. 1, 2020 to 2,376,069 on Oct. 1, 2026
Total validators on the Beacon Chain on the first day of each month, by Beaconscan's count
- December 2020 launch and September 2022 Merge
- Every other month
- Height: Validators, total count
Source: Beaconscan (Etherscan) [13].
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Dec 2020 | 27,507 |
| Jan 2021 | 67,926 |
| Feb 2021 | 90,398 |
| Mar 2021 | 103,997 |
| Apr 2021 | 113,290 |
| May 2021 | 127,476 |
| Jun 2021 | 162,919 |
| Jul 2021 | 187,587 |
| Aug 2021 | 202,352 |
| Sep 2021 | 227,492 |
| Oct 2021 | 244,185 |
| Nov 2021 | 252,762 |
| Dec 2021 | 264,205 |
| Jan 2022 | 276,093 |
| Feb 2022 | 289,571 |
| Mar 2022 | 301,597 |
| Apr 2022 | 343,595 |
| May 2022 | 377,343 |
| Jun 2022 | 397,931 |
| Jul 2022 | 405,595 |
| Aug 2022 | 412,048 |
| Sep 2022 | 421,870 |
| Oct 2022 | 439,889 |
| Nov 2022 | 458,827 |
| Dec 2022 | 482,714 |
| Jan 2023 | 495,270 |
| Feb 2023 | 511,651 |
| Mar 2023 | 544,106 |
| Apr 2023 | 562,787 |
| May 2023 | 618,674 |
| Jun 2023 | 735,760 |
| Jul 2023 | 808,916 |
| Aug 2023 | 864,036 |
| Sep 2023 | 913,582 |
| Oct 2023 | 952,467 |
| Nov 2023 | 998,772 |
| Dec 2023 | 1,052,825 |
| Jan 2024 | 1,109,178 |
| Feb 2024 | 1,173,155 |
| Mar 2024 | 1,259,579 |
| Apr 2024 | 1,331,710 |
| May 2024 | 1,383,126 |
| Jun 2024 | 1,423,589 |
| Jul 2024 | 1,470,088 |
| Aug 2024 | 1,526,833 |
| Sep 2024 | 1,564,540 |
| Oct 2024 | 1,597,468 |
| Nov 2024 | 1,645,982 |
| Dec 2024 | 1,687,082 |
| Jan 2025 | 1,728,199 |
| Feb 2025 | 1,770,902 |
| Mar 2025 | 1,804,385 |
| Apr 2025 | 1,858,081 |
| May 2025 | 1,898,462 |
| Jun 2025 | 1,940,691 |
| Jul 2025 | 1,990,180 |
| Aug 2025 | 2,037,216 |
| Sep 2025 | 2,076,255 |
| Oct 2025 | 2,098,526 |
| Nov 2025 | 2,114,804 |
| Dec 2025 | 2,153,324 |
| Jan 2026 | 2,182,216 |
| Feb 2026 | 2,202,314 |
| Mar 2026 | 2,214,561 |
| Apr 2026 | 2,240,071 |
| May 2026 | 2,267,657 |
| Jun 2026 | 2,293,288 |
| Jul 2026 | 2,303,917 |
| Aug 2026 | 2,325,603 |
| Sep 2026 | 2,352,782 |
| Oct 2026 | 2,376,069 |
Beaconscan's total rises in every month of its series13. ValidatorQueue counts only validators active that day, and it showed 845,643 on October 12, 202614. Those validators held 43,696,533 ether, 35.79 percent of the supply, it said.
CCRI also measured the computers that run validators. The institute tested pairs of client software in August and September 20227. A node running Prysm with Geth drew 60.96 watts, its best guess. The hungriest pair, Lodestar with Besu, drew 85.93 watts. CCRI used a count of 4,755 nodes, each drawing about 547.01 kWh a year.
In 2022 an Ethereum node drew 60.96 watts on Prysm and Geth, 85.93 on Lodestar and Besu
CCRI's best-guess power draw of one node after the Merge, by pair of client software, in watts
- Geth
- Erigon
- Besu
- Height: Power per node, watts
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Geth | Erigon | Besu |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prysm | 60.96 W | 65.97 W | 83.21 W |
| Lighthouse | 59.53 W | 64.54 W | 81.78 W |
| Teku | 62.01 W | 67.03 W | 84.26 W |
| Nimbus | 58.29 W | 63.31 W | 80.54 W |
| Lodestar | 63.68 W | 68.69 W | 85.93 W |
Supply moved too. Etherscan counted 117.49 million ether on September 15, 2021, and 120.52 million on September 15, 202215. On September 15, 2023, the count was 120.22 million. By October 12, 2026, it was 122.13 million.
The case for the Merge
Ryan made the case in his February 2023 reflections. “No one thought the Merge could have gone as well as it did,” he wrote8. He called it “a watershed moment for the Ethereum protocol, the Ethereum community, and crypto at large”. Ethereum kept making blocks through the switch, 17 seconds apart56.
He also pointed to the people. “The Consensus-Layer client ecosystem, diversity of expertise, and now diversity of usage is a crowning achievement,” Ryan wrote8. CCRI's numbers back the energy side. Its report says the Merge cut yearly carbon output from 11,016,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent to 869.787.
Ryan left in September 2024 with a short note. “It was an unbelievable experience helping steward Ethereum into the age of proof-of-stake,” he wrote10. In March 2025 he joined Etherealize as a co-founder, alongside Vivek Raman11.
The case against
Chandler Guo, a former miner, spoke for the miners the Merge put out of work. “I asked around and found the merger could lead to many miners losing their businesses, and some of them without covering their costs,” he told Forkast in August 20223. Forkast translated the interview from Chinese. Guo said mining farms "can hardly be transferred for other purposes".
Guo backed a fork to keep proof of work alive, called ETHW3. He said 60 volunteer developers had joined.
Ryan's own warning frames a second risk. In 2022 he wrote that pools holding large shares of stake could act as a cartel2. By October 12, 2026, 35.79 percent of all ether sat staked14.
What to watch
Ryan's case rests on two numbers that anyone can check. One is the active validator count, 845,643 on October 12, 202614. The other is CCRI's power figure, which dates from September 20227. Ethereum.org's own page puts the cut at about 99.95 percent, a rounder figure than CCRI's 99.98812.
Critics of proof of stake gain ground if stake keeps pooling. The first threshold Ryan's 2022 warning listed was one third of stake2.
Sources
- Danny Ryan, "eth2 quick update no. 21," Ethereum Foundation Blog, November 27, 2020, https://blog.ethereum.org/2020/11/27/eth2-quick-update-no-21
- Danny Ryan, "The Risks of LSD," GitHub (first posted on notes.ethereum.org), May 30, 2022, https://github.com/djrtwo/writing/blob/main/docs/2022-05-30_the-risks-of-lsd.md
- Ningwei Qin, "Chandler Guo tells why he is the man who would hard fork Ethereum," Forkast, August 18, 2022, https://forkast.news/chandler-guo-why-would-hard-fork-ethereum/
- Protocol Support Team, "Mainnet Merge Announcement," Ethereum Foundation Blog, August 24, 2022, https://blog.ethereum.org/2022/08/24/mainnet-merge-announcement
- Etherscan, "Ethereum Block #15537393," September 15, 2022, https://etherscan.io/block/15537393
- Etherscan, "Ethereum Block #15537394," September 15, 2022, https://etherscan.io/block/15537394
- Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute, "The Merge - Implications on the Electricity Consumption and Carbon Footprint of the Ethereum Network," September 2022, https://carbon-ratings.com/dl/eth-report-2022
- Danny Ryan, "Reflections 2023," GitHub, February 23, 2023, https://github.com/djrtwo/writing/blob/main/docs/2023-02-23_2023-Reflections.md
- MK Manoylov, "Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan steps away after seven years of contributions," The Block, September 13, 2024, https://www.theblock.co/post/316502/ethereum-foundation-researcher-danny-ryan-steps-away-after-seven-years-of-contributions
- Danny Ryan, "Goodbye for now," GitHub, September 13, 2024, https://github.com/djrtwo/writing/blob/main/docs/2024-09-13_goodbye-for-now.md
- Danny Ryan, "Opening a new chapter," GitHub, March 1, 2025, https://github.com/djrtwo/writing/blob/main/docs/2025-03-01_opening-a-new-chapter.md
- ethereum.org, "The Merge," read October 13, 2026, https://ethereum.org/en/roadmap/merge/
- Beaconscan, "Statistics - Validators," Total Validators series from December 1, 2020, read October 13, 2026, https://beaconscan.com/stat/validator
- Ether Alpha, "historical_data.json," ValidatorQueue data file on GitHub, daily readings from May 21, 2023 to October 12, 2026, https://github.com/etheralpha/validatorqueue-com/blob/main/historical_data.json
- Etherscan, "Ether Supply Growth Chart," daily supply from July 30, 2015, read October 13, 2026, https://etherscan.io/chart/ethersupplygrowth