Even Google is counting down the hours to the end of ethereum GPU mining

pcgamer.com:

This week, the second largest cryptocurrency, ethereum, is about to transition to a new mining process that will no longer rely on warehouses of energy-hogging GPUs. This process would consume 99.95% less energy than before. 

The Merge(opens in new tab) has been a long-time coming (opens in new tab)for the ethereum blockchain, so much so that Google now has a countdown(opens in new tab) leading up to the event when you search for 'ethereum merge.' The count is set for less than three days; if everything goes according to plan, this could have a seismic effect on the world of cryptocurrency mining and its environmental impact. 

The countdown displays the current difficulty, hash rate, and merge difficulty. Once the current difficulty reaches the Merge difficulty of 58750000 P, it looks like it'll happen early Thursday, assuming everything remains at this pace. 

The process involves the activation of the Bellatrix upgrade, which will move the ETH blockchain from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS). Instead of using power-hungry GPUs to verify transactions on the blockchain, it'll use consensus from those with a substantial amount of ETH, aka those with a «stake» in the network. 

Ethereum energy consumption has climbed back up over 83.80 TWh in recent months after a massive drop off in June, which digieconomist (opens in new tab)reports is comparable to the power consumption of Finland. So, that dropping down to 99.5% 

For context, the largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin's energy consumption is about 128.31 TWh which is at an all-time low for 2022, but still as much power usage as a medium-sized European country. 

What does this mean for large Ethereum mining operations? We could see a flood of second-hand GPUs hitting