The day Ethereum died, in price growth terms, may have been the day it stopped being mined.
On September 15, 2022, Ethereum completed The Merge and moved from proof of work to proof of stake. Technically, it was one of the biggest upgrades in crypto history. Energy use fell massively. ETH issuance dropped sharply. Staking became the new security model. Developers called it progress.
But for price growth, the debate is different.
Before The Merge, Ethereum grew under proof of work. Miners had costs. They bought machines, paid electricity, competed for block rewards, and created a real industrial demand around ETH. Like Bitcoin, Ethereum had a production economy. The market could understand scarcity, mining pressure, and the cost of creating new coins.
After proof of stake, that changed.
ETH became more financialized. Instead of miners fighting to produce new ETH, large holders could stake existing ETH and earn more ETH.
Bitcoin still has proof of work, halvings, mining difficulty, energy cost, and a simple scarcity story. Ethereum has staking rewards, liquid staking, restaking, layer two growth, DeFi activity, and smart contract utility. These are powerful, but they are more complex. Complexity can build technology, but simplicity often builds stronger market belief.
This does not mean Ethereum is useless. Ethereum still leads in smart contracts, DeFi, stablecoin activity, tokenization, and developer mindshare. But price growth is not only about technology. It is also about narrative, scarcity, demand, and investor psychology.
Proof of stake may have made Ethereum more efficient, but it also shifted ETH from a mined asset into a yield asset. That changed how the market values it.
Maybe The Merge was Ethereum’s greatest technical upgrade. Maybe it was also the moment ETH lost the one narrative that could have made it pump like Bitcoin.
What do you think, did proof of stake save Ethereum, or did it quietly weaken ETH as a long term price growth asset?
#Ethereum #bitcoin #proofofwork #ProofOfStake