This page answers one narrow question. Now that Ethereum runs on proof of stake, do NFTs minted on the network still use a lot of energy? The short answer is no. On September 15, 2022, an upgrade called the Merge ended energy-intensive mining on Ethereum and replaced it with a system that runs on a fraction of the power. That single change is why most claims about NFT energy use after the merge are out of date. The longer answer, with sources, is below.

The Merge cut Ethereum's energy use by more than 99.9%

Before the Merge, Ethereum ran on proof of work. Thousands of machines competed to solve the same puzzle, and the network rewarded whoever got there first. Competing meant burning electricity, around the clock, on hardware that mostly existed to win that race. Every NFT minted in that period inherited a share of that draw.

The Merge replaced proof of work with proof of stake. According to ethereum.org, the switch cut the network's annualized electricity consumption by more than 99.988 percent, and its carbon footprint by roughly the same margin. Those figures come from an independent assessment by the Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute, which ethereum.org cites directly. The project's own roadmap pages put the ethereum merge energy reduction in plainer terms: about 99.95 percent less energy.

We write "more than 99.9 percent" rather than a single decimal on purpose. The published numbers sit in a narrow band, and the exact figure depends on what you measure: electricity, carbon, annualized totals, per-block draw. The honest summary is simpler. The network now uses a tiny fraction of what it once did. Not a little less. A different order of magnitude.

Why proof of stake uses so little energy

The savings are structural. This was not a tuning improvement or an efficiency patch. Proof of work tied security to raw computing power. The more electricity the network burned, the harder it was to attack. Energy use was the cost of the design.

Proof of stake removes that race. Instead of machines competing to mine each block, the network selects validators who have locked up, or "staked," their own ETH. A validator that behaves honestly keeps its stake and earns a small reward. A validator that cheats can lose it. Security now comes from money put at risk rather than electricity spent, so block production no longer scales with power draw. A validator runs on roughly the demand of an ordinary computer. That is the whole reason proof of stake energy costs collapsed.

For an NFT, the practical effect is direct. Minting, transferring, or holding a relic on Ethereum today carries an energy cost far below the pre-Merge figure. The action is the same. The machinery underneath it is not.

One caveat keeps this accurate. The Merge changed Ethereum, not every blockchain. NFTs minted on chains that still run proof of work do not share this profile, and activity recorded before September 2022 happened under the old, heavier system. "NFTs are an environmental disaster" was a fair concern for proof-of-work minting. As a blanket statement about NFTs on Ethereum now, it no longer holds. The figure changed. The reputation has been slower to catch up.

What this means for an environmental NFT archive

Low network energy is the starting point, not the destination. The Merge settled whether minting on Ethereum burns large amounts of power. It did not, on its own, make any NFT project environmentally useful. That part depends on what a project chooses to do.

Trash Relics sits on this post-Merge baseline and adds a structural commitment on top of it. A permanent 8 percent environmental allocation, written into how the archive operates rather than offered as a marketing line. We describe that mechanism in full on the Environmental Impact page, which owns the detail. It is a structural rule, not a promised outcome. What the allocation funds is documented there, not inflated here.

The energy question is one objection among several that get raised about NFTs and the environment. If you want the wider picture, including speculation, waste, and the difference between chains, that belongs to the broader question of whether NFTs are bad for the environment. The archive treats that as a separate, fuller discussion.

For this narrow question, the record is clear. Ethereum moved to proof of stake in September 2022 and cut its energy use by more than 99.9 percent, on figures published by ethereum.org and measured by CCRI. The number is documented, not promised. That is the answer to NFT energy use after the merge.

Sources

  • Ethereum Foundation, "Ethereum energy consumption" — ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption (reduction of more than 99.988%, per CCRI)
  • Ethereum Foundation, "The Merge" roadmap — ethereum.org/en/roadmap/merge (date: September 15, 2022; ~99.95% energy reduction)
  • Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute (CCRI), "The Merge — Implications on the Electricity Consumption and Carbon Footprint of the Ethereum Network" — carbon-ratings.com