Input Output CEO Charles Hoskinson said the Merge changes nothing in terms of performance, operating cost, and liquidity. After months of build-up, the Ethereum Merge happened on September 15 at around 08:00 UTC. Vitalik Buterin commented that the event was a milestone moment for Ethereum and that he is proud of the efforts of all involved that made it happen. The Merge refers to joining the Proof-of-Work(PoW) execution layer to the concurrently running Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Beacon chain consensus layer, thus rendering the PoW chain obsolete. Proponents say the switch to PoS will make Ethereum more secure, scalable, and eco-friendly.