Ethereum News: Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF) published Ethereum after the merger – change in power In June 2026, the progress and impacts that the merger had on the Ethereum network dynamics were examined, confirming that annual power demand collapsed from 2.4 GWh to 7.87 GWh per year (~0.90 MWh) and CO2 emissions fell from 10.3 MtCO2 to 2.37 KtCO2, a 99.98% reduction achieved through a single change architecture program.
This is not just a milestone in sustainability. It is experimental confirmation that the consolidation, Ethereum’s September 15, 2022 transition from proof-of-work consensus to proof-of-stake (PoS), has achieved one of the most dramatic reductions in power consumption ever recorded for a major public blockchain, materially repositioning Ethereum within the ESG screening frameworks used by institutional allocators.
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Ethereum News: ETH after the merger, what the CCAF report found
The CCAF methodology is based on a network weighted average of 105 watts per node, producing numbers that the report presents as experimental rather than model projections.
The size of the reduction is best read in comparison to the real-world comparisons the report provides. Before the merger, Ethereum consumed energy similar to the national grid in Iceland; After the merger, the network area is half of what the British Museum needs, and is roughly equivalent to the energy consumed by the Eiffel Tower annually.
In contrast to the legacy banking system, which CCAF estimates at about 260 TWh per year across data centers, branches and ATM infrastructure, Ethereum’s 7.87 GWh footprint is 4.5 orders of magnitude smaller, a ratio the report describes as “about 33,000 to one.”
Cambridge Report: Ethereum’s annual energy use fell to 7.87 gigawatt hours after the merger
According to a new report from the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF), Ethereum consumes approximately 7.87 GWh of electricity per year after the merger, a reduction of more than 99.9%… pic.twitter.com/W2vWJW7BO8
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 10, 2026
On the carbon side, 2.37 kilotonnes of CO2 represents a 99.98% reduction from pre-merger levels.
In the cross-chain comparison, post-merger Ethereum falls below Solana (which records over 13.4 GWh per year) in terms of absolute consumption, but above NEAR (5.11 GWh per year). “Although Ethereum is one of the largest consumers in absolute terms, it is relatively efficient compared to its economic weight,” CCAF noted.
Node infrastructure: The risk profile has changed, not gone
The analytical question is no longer whether Ethereum’s energy consumption meets ESG limits; It did so by a wide margin. Rather, it is whether the node infrastructure supporting that low energy footprint is structurally sound enough to justify the institutional trust that the carbon numbers call for.
Secondary reports from the CCAF audit point to a concentration problem obscured by emissions data. According to reports based on the CCAF findings, a significant share of full nodes is concentrated across a small number of countries, while a notable portion of audited nodes are hosted by a small group of cloud providers.
Ethereum’s total energy footprint is lower than famous landmarks like the British Museum.
The result is “Ethereum Post-Consolidation – A Shift in Power,” released today by the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, Cambridge Judge Business School at Cambridge Judge Business School… pic.twitter.com/743UoBflQh
—James | Snapcrackle (@Snapcrackle) July 10, 2026
These dynamics, auditor geography, and hosting options represent the primary risks for future network infrastructure, shifting the focus from environmental impact to structural resilience.
These risks of centralization lie alongside persistent questions about the sustainability of developer financing, which have been explored in Separate analysis of Ethereum developer funding. We believe the CCAF report will accelerate Ethereum’s passage through ESG screens at institutional asset managers who have previously cited proof-of-work energy consumption as a barrier, but centralization data gives risk committees a second line of due diligence to work through before treating those screens as removed.
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Neil is a professional cryptocurrency content writer with years of experience. He has written for numerous cryptocurrency websites to report breaking news, and has been hired by all kinds of cryptocurrency projects, to create content that will increase their exposure and attract more potential investors.
