Ok, so if you've been hearing murmurings about:

'A hard fork of the Ethereum Network that will maintain the Proof Of Work consensus mechanism.'

...and have been left scratching your head, wondering:

1. What that sentence even means

2. Why it warrants a debate

Don't worry, we've got you!

To answer that first question:

Ethereum is about to have a big update (called 'The Merge'). A few people don't like the proposed changes and want to preserve the ability to use the old system after the update, in what is called a 'hard fork.'

It's kind of like when Windows updated to their 'Vista' operating system, and some folks hated it so much they went as far re-installing its predecessor, Windows XP.

Some people want that optionality with Ethereum.

Alright, question two...why does this warrant a debate?

You know what? We're going to use the Kardashians and Instagram as a jumping off point for this explanation.

After Instagram 'went all TikTok on us' recently, and started showing us trending content from accounts we don't actually follow - it ruffled some feathers.

None were more ruffled than Kylie Jenner & Kim Kardashian, who had a few things to say.

But it makes sense for them to be against the change, because they have the most to lose.

If anyone can reach millions of eyeballs (as long as their content is solid), it devalues the time and effort that Kylie & Kim put into growing their combined following of 687 million Instagram users.

There's a similar conflict of interest with the Ethereum hard fork.

Most of the people that want things to stay the same are those that have invested a bunch of money into (the soon to be obsolete) Ethereum mining GPU's.

So why does it warrant a debate?

From a Ethereum user perspective, it doesn't really - transactions are about to get a whole lot faster, with a slight loss in security that won't be a cause for concern for most.

From an Ethereum miner perspective, it does - they're looking for a way to continue getting a return on their investment in ETH mining GPU's.

Alright, that's it! Now you know :)

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