Speaking at the EthCC conference in Paris, V god revealed that Ethereum developers are working on five long-term phases aimed at improving the network's overall capabilities. The first item on The agenda is "The Merge," which is 90% complete and only needs to be tested on Ropsten. Once the "merge" has successfully occurred, the verifiers will be able to withdraw their ETH locked into the ETH 2.0 deposit contract.

After years of testing, research, and development, people are excited about The potential timeline for Ethereum's planned conversion to proof of equity (PoS) via The Merge. The merger, arguably the biggest protocol-level change in Ethereum's history, eliminates mining and introduces a verifier system, where verifiers will pledge their ETH to earn rewards for creating and verifying new blocks.

Tracking ETH supply continues to be of concern as ETH holdings directly determine a user's ability to participate in PoS. At the same time, the shift to PoS will also introduce a new mode of ETH issuance and influence ETH monetary policy. However, to better understand the current supply of Ethereum, observers need to go back to the critical period one year before the launch of the Ethereum network, from July 22, 2014 to September 2, 2014: ETH crowdfunding.

How should cryptocurrencies be initially allocated? The issue has been a source of constant debate for years. There are now many initial launch models with different amounts of rewards for early adopters and contributors, resulting in significantly different supply allocations.

In the case of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto solved this problem when he released the first version of the Bitcoin code in 2009:

Anyone can download Bitcoin's open-source software and contribute computing power to secure the network in exchange for newly minted BTC. According to the Bitcoin supply schedule, the first 50 BTC were generated in the Genesis block, the same number as any other block, until the block reward was reduced to 25 BTC when it was first halved in 2012 (interestingly, these 50 Genesis coins were unusable and proved to be lost).

Since then, new models have been tested as Bitcoin alternatives to cryptocurrencies proliferate. In 2013, Mastercoin (MSC), the predecessor of Bitcoin's Omni layer, launched a fundraising campaign using Bitcoin as a crowdfunding platform. Anyone can send a BTC to a specified address and receive a certain number of MSC at a predetermined rate. The project raised more than 5,000 bitcoins worth about $500,000 at the time. The success of this model will pave the way for Ethereum's high-risk ETH crowdfunding in 2014.

Crowdfunding was launched on July 22, 2014, and was planned to last 42 days. By this point, Vitalik and other early contributors had shown the world the vision for Ethereum, most notably in an Ethereum white paper in 2013 and a presentation at Bitcoin 2014 Miami in January of that year.

Crowdfunding has an interesting set of incentives for those willing to participate early. During the first two weeks of sale, 1 BTC can buy 2000 ETH, after which the price changes linearly and eventually 1337 ETH can be purchased per BTC. The chart below shows ETH prices in BTC to show the discounted ETH price at the beginning of the crowdfunding and the increased price from day 14 to day 36 of the offering. Of the 60m ETH sold, about 50m were sold in the first two weeks when prices were heavily discounted - with significant spikes in sales at the beginning of the sale and on the last day each BTC bought 2000 ETH.

In addition to the 60 million ETH sold in the crowdfunding, early ETH contributors received an additional amount equivalent to about 10% of the total ETH sold, with another 10% or so set aside for the Ethereum Foundation. This means that the total supply of Ethereum at network launch is about 72 million ETH, spread across 8,893 addresses. But as additional ETH is distributed through mining, crowdfunding participants and early contributors control a smaller percentage of the total supply over time. The total ETH supply today is nearly 120 million, and nearly 50 million new ETH have been issued since Creation.

While its lasting impact on supply distribution is often debated, ETH crowdfunding is undeniably an ambitious project, and its success reflects the enthusiasm surrounding the new era of programmable blockchains to de-support smart contracts and decentralized applications. With The Merge coming up, many eyes are on Ethereum as it enters a critical phase in its less than a decade of history.