The ETH blockchain is famous for constantly upgrading and being better than ever. These Upgrades make it faster and cheaper to operate. Not only that they add layers of cyber security and make the network more decentralized than ever.
The Proof of Stake model was the initially intended model for the ETH blockchain but it was too technically risky to start off with. So in 2015, it began as a Proof of Work (PoW) model.
Its migration is in full swing right now and will drastically reduce the energy consumption of the change. Not only that, the original roadmap for change of protocols actually predates the ETH chain itself. The evolving roadmap had migration to PoS in it already.
It is a slow process and risky too. Year after year challenges have come up and the developers keep fixing the bugs that creep up too. This has led to several delays and there is no fixed date for this to happen.
The horizontal scaling in the blockchain with added components may or may not work the best for people. The trade-offs will have to be considered as there is no perfect solution in the world of decentralized blockchain.
The peer-to-peer network will have to look at a lot of factors before these changes are made. Even though the implementation of it will lead to lower operational costs and decreased energy usage. Also PoS offers much better resistance to centralization.
As of now being a full peer on the ETH network requires 32 ETH and a dedicated computer, which costs $30-35k for the setup. Bitcoin on the other hand can have a peer for only $300 and does not require you to own any Bitcoin too. The trade-off for this is that there is a hard limit of 7 transactions per second that can be carried.
