Ethereum or The Merge: From the dream of deflation to the explosive reality of L2

📌 The Merge (09/2022) – a historical milestone when #Ethereum transitioned from PoW → PoS without interruption.

Energy consumption reduced by nearly 100% (~99.95%)

The issuance of new ETH cut by up to 95%, paving the way for a deflationary trend $ETH

The network operates stably and is even more powerful than before:

Transactions/day increased +13%

TPS increased correspondingly +13%

Transaction fees plummeted −87%

Active addresses (DAA) grew steadily +5%

📌 Shanghai (04/2023) – the upgrade that unlocks ETH withdrawals for validators.

Turning staking from “locked capital” into “flexible capital cycle”

Promoting staking to become the lifeblood of DeFi:

Over 35 million ETH staked

Over 1 million validators participated, ensuring decentralization and security

📌 Dencun (03/2024) – a major leap with Proto-Danksharding (EIP-4844) and blob transactions.

Rollup data costs decreased by up to 90%

The L2 ecosystem explodes: Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync become cheaper – faster – more vibrant

L2 transaction volume increased nearly +200% in the first month alone

Total Ethereum fees in 2024 still reached $2.48 billion (+3% YoY) even though fees per transaction are becoming cheaper

📌 The future: Full Danksharding

More blobs per block → expanding data capacity → continuing to lower L2 costs

Ethereum is gradually approaching the “Blockchain Trilemma”: scalability – security – decentralization

Statistics show: after each major upgrade, ETH price often rises on average ~30% within just 3–6 months

✨ Three years after The Merge, Ethereum not only maintains its position as the leading network but also becomes increasingly efficient, cheaper for users, safer for the ecosystem, and closer to the vision of a global decentralized infrastructure