Over 1 million Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) has been burned so far thanks to the implementation of the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559, which rolled out in August as part of the London network software upgrade and started the mass destruction of Ether.
What Happened: Ethereum burn data website WatchTheBurn shows that so far 1,003,652 ETH was burned, equivalent to about $4.226 billion as of the time of writing.
See Also: IS ETHEREUM A GOOD INVESTMENT?
EIP-1559 made it so the near-totality of fees paid for on-chain Ethereum transactions are burned — which means that thousands of coins are irreversibly destroyed each day, reducing Ethereum’s total supply.
This update is in fact expected to even make Ethereum’s supply deflationary following the network’s transition from its current proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.
This is because PoS is significantly more energy-efficient than PoW — since it does away with power-hungry mining — and consequently decreases the cost of maintaining and securing the blockchain, allowing a decrease in coin issuance since less subsidy is needed to cover the cost of network operation.
ETH Price Action: Ethereum is down 2.9% over 24 hours at $4,248.
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