🎙️ConsenSys' Ben Edgington On The Future Of Ethereum After The Merge

This week on The Defiant Podcast we speak with Ben Edgington, the product owner of Teku, an Ethereum 2.0 enterprise client being developed at ConsenSys.

It’s been a week since Ethereum switched from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and Ben has been heavily involved in the process. We start our conversation by taking a look at the aftermath of the Merge.

Ben comes from the traditional software world where companies have more efficient structures. He shares his thoughts on having a major update like The Merge go through without a hitch, especially in a space where working environments are less hierarchical.

One of the biggest criticisms of The Merge was that Ethereum under PoS would become centralized. Proof-of-stake enables individuals to delegate their ETH to entities that stake on their behalf, as running a node might be inconvenient or infeasible. We discuss how roughly half of the staked Ether is currently held by a handful of validators and what Ben thinks about this.

The Merge turned out to be a ‘sell the news’ event as the price of ETH continues to plummet after the upgrade. We talk about the potential reasons for recent market action including the absence of a common narrative to look forward to and the macro backdrop.

Finally, Ben shares his thoughts on the future of Ethereum and what comes next, now that the Merge is complete.

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

📺 Watch the video here:

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