The Ethereum Foundation announced that the last part of the update, referred to as the Paris upgrade, was finished as of 2:45 p.m. local time in Hong Kong. The Merge, a significant overhaul of Ethereum’s foundations, would affect the blockchain, currently the second largest in the world with a market cap of US$200 billion, by lowering its energy consumption and, perhaps, increasing its transaction speeds.
This Is a Crucial Step Toward Further Growth
Vitalik Buterin, one of the co-founders of Ethereum, acknowledged the moment’s importance when speaking at a Merge event that was live-streamed and sponsored by the Ethereum Foundation. However, he noted that there is still much more to come.
According to Vitalik Buterin, the Merge is just a milestone on the road from Ethereum’s infancy to the fully realized version of the platform they’ve always envisioned. He also urged the Ethereum community to provide the missing ecosystem pieces that would complete the podium.
After reaching a record high of $1,648 on Thursday, the price of Ether promptly dropped 0.5% to $1,611 after news of Merge’s development broke. The second biggest token in the world by market cap saw its price rise by around fifty per cent in the three months before the Merge.
Nonetheless, more prominent macroeconomic factors, like rising interest rates and inflation in the United States, have muted the euphoria surrounding the price of cryptocurrencies on the market in recent weeks.
In an interview, Digital Asset Dealer Amber Group’s Institutional Sales Director Justin d’Anethan expressed his views to Forkast that It’s an intriguing point for the Merge to occur because you have this macro story that is dragging on risk assets. Then you have the Merge serving as the very bullish or highly euphoric period for crypto investors.
d’Anethan continued by saying that he is still optimistic about Ethereum in general but that he would not try to predict its price in the following weeks or months since the timing itself is unpredictable and many elements are involved.
A Switch to Proof-Of-Stake (Pos) System
Because of The Merge, Ethereum has changed its consensus process from a proof-of-work system (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) system. Users verify blockchain transactions by contributing a certain quantity of Ether to the network. That’s how Proof of Stake (PoS) operates.
According to estimations provided by the Ethereum Foundation, moving to PoS would reduce the network’s overall energy usage by 99.95 per cent.
Jonathan Victor, head of NFT and Web3 storage at open-source R&D firm Protocol Labs, made an address in a written response to Forkast. Jonathan stated that the additional attention aimed at the cryptocurrency sector is beneficial for Ethereum and the industry, given the current effort to decarbonize economies worldwide. Victor’s answer was intended at Forkast.
According to Jonathan Victor, most industries strive for net zero by 2050. Thanks to the Merge, ETH will move closer to achieving this goal. He stressed that this is of the utmost significance for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the vast majority of which are stored on Ethereum, and that this action would quiet even the most ardent opponent of [NFTs].