Ethereum Merge: How Crypto's Carbon Footprint Is About to Shrink

The long-delayed Merge will see ethereum, the second-biggest blockchain behind bitcoin, become nearly carbon neutral. The Merge is part of what in the past was called "ether 2.0," a series of upgrades that reshape the blockchain's foundations. In the Merge, ethereum will adopt a system known as proof of stake, which has been planned since before the creation of the blockchain in 2014. It has been delayed multiple times because of its technical complexity, and the increasingly large amount of money at risk, it has had to be delayed. When the Merge comes into effect, miners will no longer have to compete to solve cryptographic puzzles to verify new blocks and earn rewards that entails the rewards that entail an expensive enterprise. Source