Over a year and a half ago, the Ethereum network experienced a hard fork called "The Merge" which allowed it to start running on the Proof-of-Stake algorithm, abandoning Proof-of-Work. Many people were against this change. It was believed that the blockchain would become too centralized after this. Yesterday, Vitalik Buterin presented his position, justifying the correctness of this decision.

The creator of the Ethereum blockchain defends the decision to switch to the Proof-of-Stake algorithm. He wrote that working on the Proof-of-Work model from the beginning was a "transitional phase" before the hard fork in September 2022

Vitalik Buterin explained that in the days when Ether was mined similar to bitcoin, the network was still largely centralized. Indeed, he pointed to the dominance of a few mining pools that made up the lion's share of the sector.

Was the merger a good idea?

Vitalik Buterin and the Ethereum developers are still heavily criticized by many in the cryptocurrency community for making key changes to the network's ecosystem. We are talking, of course, about the update of September 15, 2022, when ETH switched from the Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm to Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
First of all, the system of mining new coins changed, so that many miners simply had to look for a new profession, as their machines were no longer useful in terms of mining. In addition, the network activity became less harmful to the environment, as energy consumption was reduced by 99%.
However, mining has a dark side: it needs intermediaries, so the ecosystem becomes centralized. And it is for this that Buterin and his team receive the most reproaches.
Yesterday, the developer addressed the negative information on X's website regarding the topic and wrote something that may have surprised many. He stated that back when Ethereum was running on PoW, it was also left vulnerable to centralization, but this was not said out loud.
The graph he presented shows that 76% of ether mining capacity at the time was concentrated in just five large pools. The lion's share came from the miners - Spark Pool and Ethermine - which together accounted for more than half of the altcoin's production.
Okay, one argument against hard forking Ethereum has already been noted. But what about the rest? Betting has also become a problem for Ethereum from a legal standpoint, as institutions like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) treat ETH as a security.
It is for this reason, among others, that we have the latest conflict between the SEC and the crypto industry, as before the weekend, Gensler's people received a formal charge from MetaMask's creators, Consensys, in response to a Wells subpoena sent to them that foreshadowed a lawsuit on their part. We wrote more about that case here.
These regulatory hurdles also cast a big shadow of doubt on whether spot Ether ETFs can be finalized in the US.