Kategorie: Ethereum News

As the upcoming Ethereum merge continues to cause excitement within the crypto space, Ethereum Classic (ETC), a sister of Ethereum, has seen an 83% increase in hashrate since June according to Gayatri Dhumal, a researcher at BitwiseInvest.

As the hashrate of Ethereum Classic surges, Ethereum on the other hand has dipped by 11%.

Why is ETC hashrate surging?

Ethereum Classic has been the largest beneficiary of the upcoming Ethereum merge that has caused a massive exodus of Ethereum miners as the mining of Ethereum comes to a halt with the Ethereum merge upgrade.

Ethereum miners are opting out and the closest blockchain is Ethereum Classic.

While there are some efforts to launch new hard forks of Ethereum after the Merge, a majority of blockchain protocols have committed to support Ethereum after the Merge upgrade by insisting that they shall not support any proof-of-work (PoW) forks of Ethereum afterwards.

As a result, Ethereum Classic remains the only Ethereum hard fork that legitimately exists.

Earlier this month, Vitalik Buterin, the Ethereum co-founder, said that “pretty much everyone” was supportive of the Ethereum Merge that will move it from a PoW to a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain.

Generally, Ethereum Classic is expected to win big after the merge as it will be left as the only Ethereum fork to enjoy the original Ethereum PoW mechanism.

Ethereum Classic is a hard fork of Ethereum. It forked back in 2016 following the infamous DAO attack that remains one of the most significant hacking in the history of cryptocurrencies. Ethereum Classic was created by those who wanted to preserve the original Ethereum chain.

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Ethermine, the largest Ethereum mining pool, has announced the launch of a new ETH staking service that offers members a chance to collectively stake their ETH and earn 4.43% interest annually. The new staking service allows users to earn additional income on their ETH deposits.

Members will require as little as 0.1 ETH (which is just about $159) to participate in the new ETH staking service. The staking service will, however, not be available to US miners.

The new ETH staking service comes ahead of the much-anticipated Ethereum Merge, which is expected to happen on September 15.

Ethermine’s new ETH staking pool

At press time, 393 Ether (worth about $626,000) had been invested in the new ETH staking pool.

Such staking pools offer competitive interest rates and lower barriers of entry compared to solo staking pools that require node operators to stake at least 32 ETH.

The switch to offer staking services is a huge step for Ethermine, which is largely known for operating a multi-currency mining pool that allows members to mine Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Zcash, Ravecoin (RVN), Ergo (ERGO), and Beam (BEAM).

It is important to note that once the highly anticipated Ethereum merge upgrade takes place, Ethereum mining will no longer be required as previously required for the proof-of-work consensus mechanism that Ethereum currently use. After the merge, Ethereum will move to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism that is geared towards staking rather than mining.

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Crypto exchange Coinbase has launched Ethereum liquid staking token ahead of Ethereum’s migration to a proof of stake protocol.

Coinbase, one of the leading crypto exchanges in the world, announced via a tweet on Wednesday, August 24th, that it has launched its liquid staking token called, Coinbase Wrapped Staked ETH (cbETH).

This latest development comes a few weeks before the Ethereum Merge, an event that will see the Ethereum blockchain migrate to a proof of stake mechanism from its current proof of work.

Coinbase wrote that the Coinbase Wrapped Staked ETH (cbETH) is a utility token that represents ETH2, which is ETH staked through Coinbase. cbETH can be sold or sent off-platform, while ETH2 will remain locked up until a future protocol upgrade.

The crypto exchange added that the price of cbETH is NOT meant to track the price of ETH 1:1. cbETH represents staked ETH plus all of its accrued staking interest, starting from when cbETH’s conversion rate and balance were initialised.

Coinbase added that holders of ETH2 (staked ETH on Coinbase) could “wrap” their ETH2 and receive cbETH through its website. Wrapping functionality will be rolled out to eligible users progressively throughout the day, Coinbase said.

Liquid staking enables investors to generate extra income on top of standard rewards they make for staking or locking coins in a network.

With liquid staking, the locked staked coins are “wrapped” into transferable tokens, representing ownership of the underlying staked assets and any rewards earned.

The tokens generated from liquid staking are fully transferable and can be unwrapped to redeem the underlying staked assets. 

Coinbase intends to generate massive adoption of its cbETH token, which will have several uses following Ethereum’s migration. In its whitepaper, Coinbase said;

“Our hope is that cbETH will achieve robust adoption for trade, transfer, and use in DeFi [decentralized finance] applications. With cbETH, Coinbase aims to contribute to the broader crypto ecosystem through creating high-utility wrapped tokens and open sourcing smart contracts.”

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• Ethereum’s Merge is expected in September, with the Bellatrix upgrade on 6 September and Paris upgrade between 10-20 September.
• The Merge is billed as a potential bullish trigger for the broader crypto market.

Ethereum’s long-awaited transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) via the Merge is fast approaching.

On Wednesday, the Ethereum developer team announced that indeed all is set for a September switch, noting the importance of the Merge to the world’s largest smart contracts platform.

“Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake has been a loooong time coming. Thank you to everyone who contributed to researching, specifying, developing, analyzing, testing, breaking, fixing, or explaining everything that got us to The Merge,” the team wrote.

The Merge dates

According to the announcement, Ethereum has successfully handled updates to all public testnets and what remains is for the Merge to activate on the Beacon Chain followed by the Ethereum mainnet.

This will happen in two phases, involving the Bellatrix and Paris upgrades, the first of which is expected to ship on 6 September. The second upgrade, which would bring Ethereum fully to a PoS chain, will happen between 10-20 September.

The Paris upgrade will be triggered by the Terminal Total Difficulty, with the Beacon Chain validator producing the first block.

“The Merge transition is considered complete once the Beacon Chain finalizes this block. Under normal network conditions, this will happen 2 epochs (or ~13 minutes) after the first post-TTD block is produced,” the team explained.

Ethereum developers had previously indicated the Paris upgrade ushering in the PoS era would happen mid-September, an announcement that might have contributed to ETH price’s surge to above $2,000.

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Coinbase’s CEO says the crypto exchange will abandon Ethereum staking if threatened by regulatory agencies.

The Ethereum blockchain will fully migrate to a Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism in less than a month. This implies that Ethereum tokens will be staked and not mined.

The move is designed to solve some of the key issues affecting the Ethereum network, including scalability and high transaction fees. 

With the PoS mechanism, ETH holders can stake their coins on various crypto exchanges and platforms, granting them the opportunity to vote for node validators and have a say in how the network operates. 

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong responded to a hypothetical scenario on Twitter today regarding Ethereum staking. 

Armstrong stated that in the event of regulatory threats, Coinbase would shut down its Ethereum staking service. He added that Coinbase would do so in order to preserve the integrity of the blockchain network.

It’s a hypothetical we hopefully won’t actually face. But if we did we’d go with B i think. Got to focus on the bigger picture. There may be some better option (C) or a legal challenge as well that could help reach a better outcome.

— Brian Armstrong – barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) August 17, 2022

However, he added that there could be a legal option where Coinbase will challenge the authorities and hope to reach a better outcome for everyone. 

Coinbase is a publicly listed company and one of the first crypto companies to get listed on a stock exchange. 

Coinbase has been struggling in recent quarters, largely due to the ongoing bear market. Like several crypto companies, Coinbase had to lay off a certain percentage of its staff to enable it to survive the crypto winter.

The San Francisco-founded company’s revenue declined by 61% in the last quarter. Coinbase reported an after-tax loss of $1.1bn, compared with the $1.6bn net profit it registered in the middle of the crypto boom last year.

However, the company said it’s $6.2bn in available capital would enable it to keep investing through the downturn.

The cryptocurrency market has been in a bearish trend over the past nine months, with most coins down by more than 50% from their all-time highs.

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