With only a few days left for the Ethereum Merge upgrade, the cryptocurrency industry has turned its attention to Ethereum.
This upgrade, which will enable the Ethereum network to transition from the Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), has a quality that will fundamentally affect the crypto money industry.
With the network’s transition to PoS, Ethereum will consume much less energy. As it is known, cryptocurrencies using the PoW algorithm, such as Bitcoin, are under the grip of regulators because they consume a large amount of energy. The European Parliament has prepared several proposals to ban cryptocurrencies using the PoW algorithm for a long time. However, it has not achieved its purpose so far.
What is Ethereum Merge, What Does It Promise?
According to the Ethereum Foundation’s statement, Merge will reduce the energy use of the network by 99.5%. However, it will allow further improvements in the core infrastructure.
With the upgrade, the difficulty level in the PoW network will increase to a point where mining new blocks will not be possible.
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin emphasized that the Merge upgrade is just the beginning. He pointed out that new updates will come in the coming periods. According to Buterin, only 40% of Ethereum is complete. He noted that he has plans far beyond the transition of the network to PoS and that Merge is only the first phase.
Buterin said he thinks the network will be 55% complete with the Merge update. In addition, he underlined that the network, which can currently process 15-20 transactions per second, will perform 100,000 transactions per second when it is 100% completed.
These statements by Buterin clearly show how important the Merge upgrade is for both Ethereum and the cryptocurrency industry.
Crypto Industry Excited About Merge
The Ethereum Merge upgrade remains one of the top agenda items in the cryptocurrency industry for the past few years. For this reason, leading people and institutions in the crypto money industry express their opinions about Merge.
Barry Silbert, founder of Digital Currency Group, expressed his excitement for the Merge upgrade.
Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, also noted that it supports the migration of the network to PoS, after which it will only support the PoS network. Like Circle, Tether also announced that it supports the PoS chain.
CME Group also announced that it has launched Ethereum options. This development will allow institutional investors to securely invest in Ethereum.
Much of the crypto industry is excited for the Merge upgrade. However, there are also people who have various concerns about the upgrade.
One of these names was experienced trader Avi Felman. Felman said that due to Merge, investors had great expectations. He shared the view that this is not good for Ethereum’s medium-term performance.
Raoul Pal stated that Ethereum will become more attractive to institutional investors after the Merge upgrade. Pointing out that Bitcoin is not adopted by all institutions due to its environmental effects, Pal said that this bias in the industry may disappear with the transition of Ethereum to PoS.
CoinShares CSO Meltem Demirors also stated that inflation may prevent new capital from entering Ethereum.
When is Ethereum Merge? Official Date Announced
The Ethereum Foundation announced the official date for the Merge upgrade on August 24. Accordingly, it has been announced that the Bellatrix upgrade, the first step for Merge, will be launched on September 6. The Merge upgrade is likely to continue until September 20.
The Bellatrix upgrade was successfully completed on September 6 as planned.
Successful completion of Bellatrix, the first step of the Merge upgrade. Vitalik Buterin announced that the Merge will take place from September 13-15, unless there is a setback. Buterin also made a reminder that nodes in the network need to update.
The important point here is reaching the Termina Total Difficulty (TTD) value that triggers Mergü. When this value is 58,750,000,000,000,000,000,000, the network will merge the execution layer with the consensus layer and transition to Proof-of-Stake will be achieved. It is estimated that this value will be reached by 20 September. Buterin stated that if there is no setback, the transition will take place between 13-15 September.
Merge Disclosures Received from Crypto Exchanges
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced that it will evaluate forks that may occur after the Ethereum Merge upgrade. He pointed out that forks that may arise in the stock market will be examined with the same care as other cryptocurrencies on the stock market.
Binance Turkey has also increased its security measures due to the tokens that may appear during the Merge. The exchange has announced that they will temporarily suspend ETH deposits and withdrawals during the Merge. In addition, he emphasized that if a new token is created, the remaining assets in the PoW will be deposited into users’ account at a 1:1 ratio, based on 15,540,293 blocks in the network.
Paribu also announced that deposits and withdrawals of Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens will be stopped until the upgrade is successfully completed.
