As the countdown to the final moments of the big Ethereum (ETH) Merge began, co-founder Vitalik Buterin joined a live stream hosted by the Ethereum Foundation to share his final thoughts. He expresses his gratitude and happiness by saying that he is “excited about exiting from the proof-of-work era.” The co-founder said that the historic transition of the network from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) has been on the agenda for many years. Buterin added that the high costs and the massive amount of energy usage are among the biggest motivations for the switch. The Merge is expected to drastically reduce energy consumption by 99.95%, making ETH a sustainable platform.