Monat: September 2022

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ETH price falls after the Merge: here’s where to buy Ethereum

The long-awaited Merge upgrade of the Ethereum Network was successfully completed in the early hours of Thursday, September 15, 2022. The timing corresponded with earlier predictions by Ethereum developers depending on the Ethereum hashrate.

The Merge upgrade creates a more energy-efficient blockchain network since Ethereum has since shifted from being a proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain network to a proof-of-stake (PoS) network. However, the price of Ether (ETH) fell sharply after the Merge and in the early hours of Friday, it was trading at $1,474.20, down about 7.93% from Thursday’s price level.

Nevertheless, analysts expect the price to surge in the coming days once investors unwind hedges that they had bought anticipating hiccups in the rollout. So far, no issues have been reported with the Merge; something that is likely to trigger confidence among investors and possibly drive the prices higher.

According to Jon Charbonneau, a researcher at crypto research firm Delphi Digital, the Merge marks the “biggest event in crypto since the creation of bitcoin and Ethereum. Assuming all remains well, attention will turn toward future Ethereum upgrades.”

To assist investors and traders purchase the Ethereum token after the merge, Coinjournal has prepared this brief guide on the best places to buy Ethereum.

Continue reading to find out more.

Where to buy Ethereum (ETH)

eToro

eToro is one of the world’s leading multi-asset trading platforms offering some of the lowest commission and fee rates in the industry. It’s social copy trading features make it a great choice for those getting started.

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Skilling

Skilling is a Scandinavian based cryptocurrency broker which has a desktop website as well as apps for iOS and Android devices. It supports over 50 cryptocurrencies and it has a demo account to allow users to gain familiarity with the platform. Skilling has no hidden fees, it is an officially regulated broker and it supports a wide range of payment methods.

Buy ETH with Skilling today

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum was the second blockchain network to be developed after Bitcoin, which was the first blockchain to be developed. Its native token/cryptocurrency Ether (ETH) is the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

At their launch, both Bitcoin and Ethereum were designed to use a PoW consensus mechanism in confirming transactions within the networks.

However, the PoW mechanism has proved to consume a lot of energy impacting negatively on the environment. Ethereum has embarked on shifting to a PoS mechanism that is less involving, less energy-consuming, and more efficient than the PoW.

Ethereum successfully completed the migration into a PoS system through the Merge Upgrade on Thursday, September 15.

Following Ethereum’s merge, a new ad campaign is underway targeting Bitcoin’s energy use because of its proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism.

Should I buy ETH today?

Suppose you want to invest in a popular cryptocurrency that is expected to considerably rise in the coming days. In that case, ETH could be a good choice, especially after the successful Merge upgrade.

However, the cryptocurrency market is extremely volatile, and you should invest cautiously.

Ethereum coin price prediction

Despite the price fall after the Merge, analysts expect the price of Ethereum to surge possibly above $2K in the coming days once investors unwind their hedge positions since there are currently no hiccups recorded following the Merge upgrade.

$ETH social media trends

 

The post ETH price falls after the Merge: here’s where to buy Ethereum appeared first on CoinJournal.

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New $1M ad campaign against Bitcoin mining after Ethereum’s Merge

  • Climate groups want Bitcoin to follow Ethereum into switching from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism.
  • The groups have announced a new $1 million ad campaign targeted at pressuring Bitcoin and companies like Fidelity, PayPal and Jack Dorsey’s Block to help push the agenda.
  • Bitcoiners already scoffed at the calls when the campaign “Change the Code, Not the Climate” first launched in March.

It was bound to happen and so it has.

A new campaign is underway targeting Bitcoin’s energy use as a proof-of-work (PoW) network. The debate is getting new impetus after Ethereum finally launched its software upgrade via the Merge to become a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain.

And as Ethereum cuts its energy consumption by 99.95%, which Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin confirmed will reduce global consumption by 0.2%, a host of environmental groups want Bitcoin to follow suit.

Bitcoin is an ‘outlier’, group claims

A statement published on Thursday by the Environmental Working Group, says a $1 million ad campaign has been launched to push for a rethink of Bitcoin’s “outmoded” PoW consensus mechanism.

Apart from online advertisements, the initiative through Greenpeace is petitioning Fidelity Investments – which recently added Bitcoin to its clients’ retirement (401(k)) accounts – to push for a PoW-to-PoS transition for BTC. Other players mentioned in the release are PayPal and Jack Dorsey’s Block (formerly Square Inc.).

“Change the Code, Not the Climate” director Michael Brune said Bitcoin needs to look at the climate crisis and take its responsibility. He noted:

“With fires raging around the world and historic floods destroying lives and livelihoods, state and federal leaders and corporate executives are racing to decarbonize as quickly as possible. Ethereum has shown it’s possible to switch to an energy-efficient protocol with far less climate, air and water pollution. Other cryptocurrency protocols have operated on efficient consensus mechanisms for years. Bitcoin has become the outlier, defiantly refusing to accept its climate responsibility.“

According to the “Change the Code, Not the Climate” group, discussions involving Congress and the Biden administration are taking place as they try to push the campaign goal.

Bitcoiners already put it to the group after the $5 million anti BTC campaign’s launch in March that no such thing will happen. In fact, people pointed to Bitcoin mining already going green across the globe. 

Darin Feinstein, the co-founder of blockchain-focused firm Core Scientific, explained why Greenpeace should have been fighting for Bitcoin and not against it. His tweet in March: 

So, will Ethereum’s merge give the “Change the Code, Not the Climate” campaign the thrust it hopes to get to make “the change” happen? .

The post New $1M ad campaign against Bitcoin mining after Ethereum’s Merge appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Broadridge partners with Coinbase to offer integrated trading solution

Despite the crypto winter, institutional investors have largely been unfazed. And the increased demand is seeing more mainstream companies offer products and solutions tailored for institutional clients.

Broadridge Financial Solutions, a leading fintech provider with over $5 billion in revenue and whose infrastructure and platforms help power over $9 trillion in daily trading across equities and fixed income, has partnered cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to offer an integrated trading solution.

Institutional adoption of crypto

The collaboration will help Broadridge boost access to crypto trading and offer greater liquidity for institutional clients looking to benefit from opportunities in crypto, the companies said in a press release.

In particular, the partnership seeks to offer interoperability between the fintech firm’s NYFIX order-routing network and Coinbase Prime.

According to the firms, buy-side traders will be able to leverage the integrated solution to tap into crypto liquidity on Coinbase, allowing them to trade directly from their order management system (OMS).

The solution will initially be available to US domestic clients before being rolled out to other regions subject to regulatory approval.

“Despite short-term cycles, momentum in institutional adoption is trending one way – toward more exploration and more interest,” Coinbase VP of Institutional Products Greg Tusar noted in a statement.

He added that the use of NYFIX’s order-routing network will help lower barriers to adoption of crypto as an asset class, with buy-side traders benefitting from the “deep, multi-venue crypto liquidity.”

Coinbase Prime’s offering of an institutional-grade trading platform, custody and prime brokerage capabilities will be key to the two firms’ goals, the news release added.

“Now, through Coinbase’s deep access to liquidity and NYFIX’s extensive market reach, we can integrate more than two thousand clients to bring crypto trading to the institutional market,” said Ray Tierney, President of Broadridge Trading and Connectivity Solutions.  

Recently, Coinbase partnered with the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock to offer crypto trading to clients. Investment giants Fidelity, Charles Schwab and Citadel Securities also made a massive move with the launch of a crypto exchange.

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Ethereum miners flock to Ethereum Classic and elsewhere, in wake of Merge

One of the most covered criticisms of Ethereum since its creation in 2015 has been its mammoth energy usage.

While not as heavy as Bitcoin, it nonetheless consumes 0.2% of the world’s electricity, and is responsible for between 20% and 39% of cryptocurrency’s electricity consumption as a whole (Bitcoin claims between 60% and 70%).

Now – and going forward – that energy consumption has fallen 99.95% following the successful completion of the Merge. It’s an incredible achievement.

What is the Ethereum PoW token?

Miners will thus have to find another coin to mine. However, some are clinging to hope that a fork of Ethereum will maintain the Proof-of-Work validation consensus which will allow them to continue to mine.  

The PoW token will be received via airdrop to holders of Ethereum, with its price varying over the last few days quite drastically. Peaking as high as $60, it currently trades at $18.

How does Ethereum mining work?

Ethereum miners have to date used powerful computers known as ASICs to validate transactions. With staking, this is no longer necessary, meaning their livelihoods are in question. Many have swapped to other cryptos in order to continue to mine, and the effect of this can be seen in the hash rate of these other cryptos.

Hash rate is a measure of the computing power on a network, and is a key security indicator – the higher the hash rate, the higher the security, as more miners have to verify transactions. For Bitcoin, the hash rate hit an all-time high last week. 

Let’s zoom in on this year, which may be more indicative.

This shows the hash rate opened the year at around 170 EH/s, yet is now north of 200 EH/s (and hit 280 EH/s earlier this week). This is despite the price of Bitcoin plummeting from the mid $40K’s to below $20,000.

Ethereum Classic

More interestingly, however, is the uptick in hash rate seen on Ethereum Classic. This has been drastic, rising from around 50 TH/s last week to over 300 TH/s. This points towards Ethereum miners flipping over to the Classic variant with their equipment – a much easier shift than would be required to move to Bitcoin.

Indeed, other coins have seen upticks in hash rate as well – Monero, Ravencoin, Ergo, to name a few.

For the miners that have not flipped to alternatives, they will hold out hope that the Ethereum PoW alternative takes hold. Otherwise, they’ll be left with expensive ASICs and no real use case, now that Ethereum is Proof-of-Stake and no longer generating miner revenue.

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