The report stresses that “The Merge,” a foundational change in Ethereum’s consensus mechanism, reduced energy demand by 3.5 orders of magnitude, scaling down a network that required energy equivalent to a small nation-state like Iceland before the new proof-of-stake consensus change.
Key Takeaways
Cambridge released a report detailing Ethereum’s massive energy efficiency gains following the 2022 Merge.The network’s annual power demand dropped to 7.87 GWh, causing total emissions to plummet by nearly 99.98%.Ethereum now consumes a tiny fraction of the energy required by legacy banking systems and global platforms.The report found dramatic energy consumption changes after ‘The Merge,’ the name that was given to the change in consensus mechanism that Ethereum experienced on 15 September 2022. The center states that the pre-merge Ethereum energy demand climbed to 2.4 GW, the demand of a nation-state the size of Iceland.
“Taken together, the two measures show that while Ethereum is one of the larger consumers in absolute terms, it is comparatively efficient relative to its economic weight,” the center highlighted.
In comparison, the Ethereum network’s footprint reaches half of what the British Museum needs, and only a fraction of what global platforms like Netflix need to operate, roughly equivalent to the energy the Eiffel Tower consumes.
The report also established a comparison with traditional financial networks, estimating that the legacy banking system- including data centers, branches, and ATM infrastructure- used 260 TWh per year. “Against this benchmark, Ethereum’s 7.87 GWh (0.0079 TWh) footprint is about 4.5 orders of magnitude smaller, a ratio of roughly 33,000 to one,” the report assessed.
Emissions also fell from 10.3 MtCO₂ to 2.37 ktCO₂e, a reduction of nearly 99.98% achieved with a single architecture software change.
