'Green ETH' narrative to drive investment and adoption, says pundits

cointelegraph.com:

The shedding of Ethereum’s energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) system is expected to see Ether (ETH) “flow into the institutional world,” according to a number of fund managers and co-founders.

On Sept. 15, Ethereum officially transitioned to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, which is expected to cut energy consumption used by the network by 99.95%, according to the Ethereum Foundation.

The upgrade effectively ended the need for the Ethereum network to rely on miners and energy-guzzling mining hardware to validate transactions and build new blocks, as these functions are now replaced by validators who “stake” their ETH.

"The merge will reduce worldwide electricity consumption by 0.2%" - @drakefjustin

In a statement to Cointelegraph, Charlie Karaboga, CEO and co-founder of Australian fintech company Block Earner said the network’s transition to PoS would “drive the future of money to be more internet-based.”

He said that Ethereum would become “the settlement layer that everyone will accept and trust — especially when the spotlight is shining brighter than ever on the issue of sustainability in crypto mining.”

Markus Thielen, Chief Investment Officer of digital asset manager IDEG said that he had been in discussions with sovereign wealth funds and central banks to help build their digital asset portfolios, but direct investment had often been “voted down due to energy concerns.”

But now that the Ethereum network has transitioned to PoS, this issue is much less of a concern, he said:

Henrik Andersson of Apollo Capital told Cointelegraph that ESG had become a “big factor” behind institutional investment decision making in the last few years.

Andersson said he believes the 99.95% energy consumption cut on Ethereum would