Analysing The "Merge" Proof Of Stake is here to stay

Blockchain • Published on: Sep 05, 2022 • Last updated: Sep 05, 2022

What is the ‘’Merge‘’?

One of the most anticipated events in the cryptocurrency industry is the long-awaited ‘’Merge’’. This is Ethereum’s most challenging upgrade to date, finally coming to fruition after many years of delays.

This upgrade comes with a fundamental change that drastically impacts the ecosystem's carbon footprint. Ethereum’s current consensus mechanism is Proof-Of-Work (PoW) which is a resource-intensive method. The Merge upgrade will introduce the more resource-efficient Proof-Of-Stake (PoS) to the Ethereum ecosystem, replacing PoW.

One of the key advantages of PoS is its energy efficiency, resulting in a significantly lower carbon footprint. This has been one of the cornerstones of Ethereum’s direction change, as the Ethereum Foundation has stated that PoS networks utilise 99.99% lesser energy compared to PoW networks.

What is Proof-of-Stake?

Proof-of-Stake is a consensus mechanism in which blockchain validators, instead of proving they performed work (Proof-Of-Work) they instead prove their commitment to the underlying network by staking their coins.

Anyone can be a validator; however, often, there are a few requirements in terms of the required number of staked coins. In the case of Ethereum, the minimum number of tokens to be a validator is 32 ETH.

Ethereum is definitely not the only chain using PoS; currently, most blockchains use PoS or a variant of PoS. LTO Network has been among the frontrunners in PoS but utilises a variant: Leased Proof-of-Stake (LPoS).

LPoS? What is that?

LPoS is a community-inclusive consensus mechanism that aims to incentivise any LTO holder to support and secure the network.

The consensus model utilises nodes; any LTO holder can set up a node. The minimum number of tokens to be an LTO Network validator is 1,000 LTO.

The nodes are the engine of the LTO Network ecosystem. They validate the blocks by ensuring that all the transactions in a block are valid, and if that is the case, the block gets signed and added to the blockchain.

However, given the technical overhead associated with setting up and maintaining a node, the LTO Network ecosystem allows non-node owners to lease their tokens to a full node. The node owner gets rewarded through a small node fee on the leaser's leasing rewards (i.e. block rewards proportional to the leaser's total stake). Leasers are not sending their LTO tokens to a node; however, they delegate the node with a leasing right. Thus, your tokens are always ‘’SAFU’’!

Decentralized and Secure

The importance of ecosystem decentralization and security are prominent, but how secure is LTO? Currently, over 121,000,000 tokens are being leased to 92 active nodes in 16 sovereign countries, from Japan to the United States. The geographical spread of nodes is essential for decentralization, and we encourage anyone to set up a node to secure the ecosystem further.

On top of that, over the last few months, the total number of leased tokens has impressively increased, meaning the ecosystem is getting even more secure. We are very pleased by this development and aim to decentralize the chain further, which our latest tokenomics upgrade, JUICY, specifically achieved by increasing the overall staking activity. JUICY enhanced the leasing (i.e. staking) annual percentage yield (APY) and therefore incentivised LTO holders to lease their assets for a competitive variable APY.

Key Benefits of Proof of Stake for the LTO Network

Decentralization	LTO has over 90 active nodes, ensuring that the network remains decentralized.
Resource-efficient	PoS used little to no energy.
Scalable	Blocks can be processed quicker, considering there is no need for solving complex equations.
Community Inclusive	Anyone can participate in the network without the need for expensive equipment.