🎙 Justin Drake on How The Merge Helps Make Ethereum the Settlement Layer of the Internet

This week on The Defiant podcast we speak with Justin Drake, a researcher for the Ethereum Foundation. He’s at the forefront of the biggest change to happen in Ethereum's history: The transition from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake, also known as The Merge. We go into what the next steps are before this change happens, how exactly it will be executed, and what the risks are. Last week, right after we recorded this interview, fellow researcher Tim Beiko suggested the switch would happen in September.

Justin dives into how the change to PoS will impact users. Justin argues The Merge will make Ethereum the most secure blockchain out there, while reducing ETH supply, putting Ethereum on its way to becoming the settlement layer of the internet. Still, The Merge will only bring marginal improvements in scalability. Justin discusses what the roadmap is for Ethereum to be able to support millions of transactions per second, from around just 10 today.

🎙Listen to the interview in this week’s podcast episode here:

📺 Watch the video here:

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👀 Only paid subscribers have access to the full interview transcript below.