According to Vitalik Buterin, Zcash and Dogecoin will switch to the proof-of-stake mechanism

Two further proof-of-work blockchains, Zcash and Dogecoin, are expected to switch over to proof-of-stake consensus in the future, according to Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum.

Buterin said during this year’s Mainnet blockchain event that Zcash and Dogecoin will ultimately switch to proof of stake when the consensus model reaches maturity.

“I would answer that it should because I anticipate that as PoS develops, its legitimacy will grow.
I hope Zcash switches, and I hope Dogecoin soon switches to PoS “On Friday, Buterin remarked.

 

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Buterin’s message explained

After years of study and development, Ethereum underwent The Merge on September 15—a much anticipated update that changed its consensus method from proof of work to proof of stake. The Ethereum Foundation reports that the switch to proof-of-stake resulted in a 99.9% decrease in energy usage, which will significantly lessen the carbon footprint of the blockchain.

The developers of Zcash and Dogecoin have already shown interest in switching to proof of stake in separate announcements, which is in accordance with Buterin’s predictions.

Zcash’s creator, Electric Coin Company, described its strategy and forthcoming stages for deploying PoS in a blog post published in the middle of 2021. The idea has also been proposed by Dogecoin. A blockchain consensus switch, however, is more difficult to implement than it may first appear, necessitating a careful conversation among community members about the potential effects on a network.

According to CoinGecko statistics, Dogecoin and Zcash are both among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization that use the proof-of-work protocol. While Zcash is a privacy-focused asset and Dogecoin is a meme coin, they both employ specialized mining hardware that consumes a lot of electricity to process new blocks.

Proof-of-stake consensus, on the other hand, relies on validators who stake assets on the network to confirm their integrity while confirming blocks. The need to spend money on hardware and power is reduced as a result.