The crypto community is abuzz this week with all things “merge,” the looming date when the Ethereum blockchain will transition from proof of work to proof of stake. If that language is still gobbledygook to you, don’t worry, we’ll break it down below. But the question we’re asking today is: Which crypto companies will benefit most from the merge? It turns out that crypto exchanges—think Coinbase, Binance and Kraken—may end up being big winners. But they’ll have competition.
A short explainer on the merge: Right now, Ethereum is run by blockchain miners—those massive computer farms you hear about—which race to solve a complicated puzzle to maintain the network in exchange for token rewards. That process, called proof of work, is energy intensive—you have a bunch of miners using computing power, and they’re all competing with each other.