What’s next for the future of Ethereum? Mihailo Bjelic from Polygon explains

The much-anticipated Merge upgrade has been in the making for over two years.

With the transition to a scalable, energy-light proof-of-stake blockchain at play for Ethereum, many have cast doubts on the popular coin’s future, given the magnitude and complexity of the Merge upgrade. But, among prominent stakeholders, one particular project remains heavily bullish on Ethereum’s future, which is none other than layer-two scaling solution Polygon.

At the annual Ethereum Community Conference in Paris, Cointelegraph’s events manager, Maria A., spoke to Polygon’s vice president of growth, Mihailo Bjelic, regarding the topic. Here’s what Bjelic had to say regarding the Merge:

"This is an upgrade on a live network that has millions of users, billions in capital, and tens of thousands of applications. It is never easy, but the Merge has been in the works for over two years. All the testnets have been successful, the code has been audited, etc., so I think we are more than ready for the upgrade."

Bjelic then explained that it’s more than likely that Ethereum will endure the bear market and recover: “Two reasons. First, it's the home of innovation and development. It's where all the developers are, it's where 90%-plus of activity is happening. Projects focused on the money will disappear, but the true developers will stay.” He continued: “The second reason is that Ethereum is the most secure, decentralized and programmable blockchain in the world, by far. It is perfectly positioned to be the center of this multichain web that we're trying to build to potentially reach to billions of users.”

Concurrent with this interview, Polygon announced on Wednesday that it launched the Polygon zkEVM, or zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine, that would potentially scale the blockchain’s transaction output to even greater levels. “It has full EVM compatibility, scalability and security using the power of zero-knowledge proofs. I would say this is a major breakthrough in terms of technology,” said Bjelic. On the adoption side, Polygon has onboarded over 30,000 applications and 140 million user wallets since its inception.