But Katie Talati, head of research at crypto asset manager Arca, was cautiously optimistic, highlighting the energy efficiency and other improvements resulting from The Merge in comments to CoinDesk TV’s First Mover program. “From a technological standpoint, this is as advanced and as significant as it gets,” Talati said, adding: “We’re potentially going to have a much lower emission of Ethereum, but then also the benefit like the potential for anybody who is a validator or node on the network to earn part of that staking yield.”