The most significant technical shift was the transition from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism with The Merge in 2022, enhancing energy efficiency and scalability [6, 11, 12]. The London upgrade's EIP-1559 introduced a base fee burning mechanism and a more predictable transaction fee market, fundamentally altering Ethereum's monetary policy [2, 5, 10]. The initial launch of the Ethereum blockchain under 'Frontier' in 2015 introduced the revolutionary concept of a decentralized platform for smart contracts and dApps [25, 31, 32].