Last week, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), achieved a huge milestone. Developers finished The Merge, a much-anticipated change in how the network is governed, how transactions are approved, and how new blocks are formed. The Merge has been in the works for years, and while it was an important achievement, the Ethereum community still has more work to do if it wants to further scale the blockchain. In fact, another majoe upgrade could occur in 2023. Here's what investors should be on the lookout for.

The main thing The Merge accomplished was transitioning Ethereum from a proof-of-work governing mechanism to a proof-of-stake mechanism.

Proof of work was the original way that blockchain networks were run, and it's still used by the pioneer blockchain Bitcoin, the biggest crypto by market value. Under those types of mechanisms, mining rigs -- at this point, usually arrays of specially designed computers -- attempt to solve cryptographic puzzles as fast as possible in order to get the opportunity to validate the transactions coming through the network and add new blocks to the blockchain.

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Source Fool.com