[amanzi]

My only crypto-mining success is that I mined an ether back in the day when it was worth $10. I have it stashed away for a rainy day, but I have no idea if it's going to be worth anything in the future. Can anyone give a TLDR of what this merge means?

[bsaul]

They changed the underlying algorithm for determining who to trust to validate transactions in the system. This new algorithm requires 1% of the computer power of the previous one, and supposedly work just as fine.

[mratsim]

0.0089%: source https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption/ using Digiconomist figures.

22000x less energy consumed than Youtube or gold mining and 10000x less than Netflix.