Recently on September 15th, Buterin’s creation, Ethereum, transitioned from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, in one of the biggest blockchain updates in history.
Today, Ethereum runs on a staking consensus mechanism that requires Ether owners to “stake” their currency in order to generate new tokens and run the blockchain.
The Ethereum co-founder is so excited with the possibilities of blockchains running on staking consensus that he is now pushing for other cryptocurrencies to follow through and also transition to a staking mechanism.
During his virtual presentation at Mainnet 2022, a cryptocurrency conference organized by cryptocurrency analytics firm Messari, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that the meme coin Dogecoin should move to proof-of-stake.
After Ethereum’s transition, Dogecoin became the second-largest proof-of-work cryptocurrency (behind only Bitcoin).
However, things could change in the future for the meme coin.
The Dogecoin Foundation recently stated that switching to proof-of-stake would be in the future plan. Also, earlier this year Buterin indicated that he was working together alongside Dogecoin Foundation about a potential transition to proof-of-stake.
“I’d say should … as PoS matures I would expect it to increase in legitimacy over time.” Buterin said at Mainnet 2022. “I hope zCash moves over and I am hopeful Dogecoin moves to PoS soon,”
Buterin Also Pushing for Zcash PoS
At the same conference, the Ethereum co-founder also stated that he believes that the electric coin “zCash” should also adopt a staking mechanism.
When asked if Zcash will hold its own “merge” event, the CEO of Electric Coin Company stated that he was waiting to see how Ethereum would do after its update.
“We’re literally waiting to see what we can learn with Ethereum,” the CEO of zCash Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn said. “I believe what we’ve learned is that it actually works.”
Buterin’s Defense of PoS
Buterin stated during the conference that the transition had gone better than planned. The Ethereum developer community will now focus on making the second-largest blockchain more scalable. The Canadian programmer identified scalability as the most significant challenge for the next 18 months, stressing that the ecosystem must “deliver on.”