The Merge has come and gone — and with it, a historic shift in Ethereum’s evolution. Transitioning from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS), Ethereum is now over 99% more energy efficient. But this isn’t the finish line. It’s the starting gate for a series of ambitious upgrades designed to transform Ethereum into a faster, cheaper, and more decentralized network.
If successful, these upgrades could enable Ethereum to process up to 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) — a monumental leap from its current 15 TPS. Let’s explore what comes next: the Surge, Verge, Purge, and Splurge, and how they collectively aim to fulfill Ethereum’s vision as the backbone of Web3.
The Merge: A Foundation for the Future
Ethereum’s journey toward PoS began almost as soon as the network launched in 2015. After seven years of development, The Merge finally delivered on that promise. By switching to PoS, Ethereum drastically reduced its energy consumption and changed how new ETH is issued.
Under PoW, miners were rewarded with newly minted ETH for securing the network. Now, validators stake their own ETH to participate in consensus — and receive smaller rewards. Annual ETH issuance is projected to drop from 5 million ETH to a dynamic rate based on total staked ETH: 166 × √(total ETH staked). In practical terms, this could mean a 90% reduction in new supply — equivalent to three Bitcoin halvings.
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This dramatic drop in issuance, combined with EIP-1559, creates a deflationary pressure on ETH. Since August 2021, EIP-1559 has required that a portion of transaction fees (gas fees) be “burned” — permanently removed from circulation. With lower issuance and ongoing fee burns, Ethereum could become net deflationary, increasing scarcity and potentially driving long-term value.
But scalability remains the next frontier.
The Surge: Scaling Through Sharding
Ethereum’s mainnet has long struggled with congestion. High demand from DeFi, NFTs, and speculative trading has driven gas fees into the hundreds of dollars during peak times. While Layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon have helped offload activity, Ethereum needs native scaling to achieve mass adoption.
Enter the Surge — the next major phase focused on sharding.
Sharding splits the Ethereum blockchain into 64 smaller chains called shards, each capable of processing transactions independently. These shards operate as Layer 2 rollups, bundling transactions and submitting them back to the mainnet for final settlement. This approach keeps security anchored in Ethereum’s core while distributing computational load.
Once fully implemented, sharding could increase Ethereum’s throughput from 15 TPS to 100,000 TPS. More importantly, it could reduce Layer 2 transaction costs by up to 90%, making microtransactions viable for everyday use — think social media interactions, gaming actions, or IoT device communication.
Unlike monolithic chains that scale vertically (like Solana), Ethereum scales horizontally — embracing modularity and decentralization over raw speed at the cost of centralization.
The Verge: Stateless Clients and Lighter Nodes
As Ethereum scales, maintaining decentralization becomes even more critical. One challenge: running a full node requires significant storage and computing power due to the massive amount of network state data.
The Verge aims to solve this by replacing Merkle trees with Verkle trees — a more efficient cryptographic structure.
Merkle trees require nodes to store and verify large portions of the network state to validate transactions. Verkle trees, however, allow nodes to verify transactions using minimal data — enabling stateless clients.
With stateless clients:
- Validators can operate on low-power devices.
- Node size shrinks dramatically.
- Participation becomes more accessible, boosting decentralization.
This upgrade doesn’t eliminate data storage needs — but it redefines what nodes must store in real time. The past history still exists; it just doesn’t need to live on every node.
The Purge: Cleaning Up the Blockchain Bloat
Even with stateless clients, there’s a growing problem: blockchain bloat.
The Ethereum ledger currently exceeds 1TB and grows daily. Full nodes must store this entire history — a burden that discourages participation and risks centralization.
The Purge tackles this head-on.
Proposed via EIP-4444, this upgrade would allow nodes to delete historical data after a certain period. Instead of storing every block since genesis, nodes would only retain recent data or rely on archival services for deep history.
The goal? Enable users to run validators on everyday devices — even smartphones.
Vitalik Buterin has openly stated his vision: “You should be able to validate Ethereum on your phone.” The Purge brings that dream closer to reality by reducing hardware barriers and lowering entry costs for network participants.
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The Splurge: Polishing the Vision
“The Splurge” isn’t a single upgrade — it’s a catch-all term for smaller improvements that enhance usability, security, and efficiency across the network.
These include:
- Further refinements to consensus mechanics.
- Improvements in cross-shard communication.
- Enhanced wallet abstraction and account recovery.
- Better tooling for developers and node operators.
While less flashy than sharding or statelessness, the Splurge ensures that Ethereum remains robust, user-friendly, and adaptable as new use cases emerge.
Together, these four phases — Surge, Verge, Purge, and Splurge — form a cohesive roadmap to scale Ethereum without sacrificing decentralization or security.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: What is the main goal of Ethereum’s post-Merge upgrades?
A: To make Ethereum faster, cheaper, and more scalable while preserving decentralization and security — ultimately enabling mass adoption for everyday applications.
Q: How will sharding improve Ethereum’s performance?
A: By splitting the network into 64 shards, Ethereum can process transactions in parallel rather than sequentially, increasing throughput from 15 TPS to an estimated 100k TPS.
Q: Will Ethereum become deflationary after The Merge?
A: It already shows signs of being deflationary. With reduced issuance from PoS and continuous ETH burning via EIP-1559, supply can shrink during periods of high network usage.
Q: Can I run an Ethereum node on my phone after The Purge?
A: That’s the goal. By removing the need to store full historical data and enabling stateless validation via Verkle trees, future upgrades aim to make smartphone-based validation feasible.
Q: Are Layer 2 solutions still important after sharding?
A: Yes. Layer 2 rollups will continue to handle most user transactions. Sharding enhances their efficiency by providing more data availability on-chain.
Q: When will all these upgrades be completed?
A: There’s no fixed timeline. Upgrades are being developed in parallel and rolled out incrementally. Some components may arrive in phases over the next several years.
The Road Ahead
Ethereum’s transformation is far from over. The Merge was just the beginning — a necessary foundation for what comes next. With the Surge enabling massive scalability, the Verge unlocking lightweight validation, the Purge reducing storage burdens, and the Splurge refining the experience, Ethereum is evolving into a truly global decentralized computer.
These upgrades aren’t just technical tweaks — they’re architectural revolutions aimed at making blockchain accessible to billions.
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While challenges remain — including coordination complexity and execution risk — the direction is clear: a faster, greener, and more inclusive Ethereum.
As we move forward, one thing is certain: the next chapter of Web3 will be written on Ethereum.