Kategorie: Ethereum News

• BitMEX’s former CEO says an unsuccessful ETH merge will cause a price crash.

• The Merge, expected in mid-September, will see Ethereum transition to a Proof-of-Stake.

• Ethereum has been gaining ahead of the merged platform.

Former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes says Ethereum ETH/USD could crash if the anticipated merge flops. According to Hayes, the best time to short the cryptocurrency is on the cusp of the PoS shift. He expects Ethereum to revisit $1,000 if the Merge becomes unsuccessful. The Ex-BitMEX CEO recommends using put options to hedge against the bearish scenario.

In the eventful scenario that the Merge becomes a success, Hayes says Ethereum could hit $5,000. He also expects the Fed’s monetary stance to have a major impact on the price. A bull case will be reinforced by a less aggressive move by the US central bank. Hayes says he will still not sell his ETH stake right into the Merge.

The comments by Hayes come when Ethereum is claiming new highs. At press time, the token was trading at $1,875, after sliding from a high of above $2,000. ETH’s price is up by 10.72% in the past one week. The gains reflect optimism around the PoS shift. Developers have already completed the final PoS merge on Goerli Testnet ahead of the Merge.

Ethereum meets resistance after the latest gains

Source – TradingView

From the technical outlook, Ethereum has hit resistance at the $1,950 level. The weekly chart still shows that the MACD line crossed above the moving average. That suggests a potential continuation of the bullish momentum. ETH is also about to clear above the 21-day MA on the weekly chart.

Concluding thoughts

Despite ETH hitting resistance at $1,950, it is bullish. Investors should watch for a breakout at $1,950 in the next few days. A retracement is also possible. The upcoming Merge will be a bull price trigger. Investors should also be cautious of potential merge-induced volatilities. The coin is a good buy on a breakout.

The post Ex-BitMEX CEO says short ETH before Merge, but should you? appeared first on CoinJournal.

The Ethereum network’s Merge is set to take place by next month, and Vitalik Buterin is confident it will improve the network.

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain, believes that the Merge will make the Ethereum network more secure. Buterin said this while speaking at the Blockchain Futurist Conference in Toronto.

The Ethereum Merge will see the Ethereum blockchain finally migrate to a proof of stake mechanism. Earlier this week, the Ethereum proof-of-stake test Merge went live on Goerli.

This latest development meant that the Ethereum mainnet would migrate to a proof of stake on September 15/16. Commenting on this latest development, Buterin said;

“Ethereum’s energy consumption [after the merge] will be reduced by more than 99.9%, so it’s a big improvement. It’s also an opportunity to kind of take some of the ideas that we’ve learned over the last eight years or so, and use that to really redefine what the different parts of the Ethereum chain [can do].”

After the switch, Buterin is confident that the Ethereum network could be made more secure, transaction speed would increase, and costs would be lowered.

The Merge would also open up Ethereum up to more upgrades in the future, Buterin said. He added that once the Merge is completed, the biggest focus will be on the scalability of the Ethereum network. 

Ether, the native coin of the Ethereum network, has performed excellently over the past few weeks. ETH declined towards the $1,000 mark a few months ago as the bear market affected the performances of numerous cryptocurrencies.

However, ETH is currently trading at around $1,900 per coin, up by more than 50% over the past four weeks. 

ETH could rally higher over the coming weeks as the Merge will take place on September 15/16.

The post The Ethereum network will be more secure after the Merge, says Vitalik Buterin appeared first on CoinJournal.

Circle is blocking USDC transactions connected to the Tornado Cash decentralised application, a move that is seen by many as a clear danger of centralisation.

Earlier this week, the United States Treasury Department added more than 40 cryptocurrency addresses allegedly connected to controversial mixer Tornado Cash to the Specially Designated Nationals list of the Office of Foreign Asset Control, or OFAC.

Following this latest development, Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, reportedly froze over 75,000 USDC worth of funds linked to the 44 Tornado Cash addresses sanctioned by OFAC. 

Marius Ciubotariu, the co-founder of Hubble Protocol, commented that Circle’s move shows the danger of centralisation. Ciubotariu said;

“Circle’s decision to follow along with the US Treasury and ban users of Tornado from buying or selling USDC tokens is an extremely worrying development that threatens the integrity of cryptocurrency, and decentralized finance in particular.

An estimated $437 million of assets have been blocked as a result of this decision, one that will surely impact all manner of users of the cryptocurrency mixing service. More importantly, though, it underlines how dangerous it is to have one centralized company managing over $54 billion of assets in crypto.”

Ciubotariu pointed out that the precedent that this could set for the future of Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) smart contracts is also alarming. In the future, it could be possible to see these contracts written with an opt-in clause that would allow node validators to decide not to process a transaction due to a black/watchlist. 

Circle’s move is a wake-up call to the crypto industry

Stefan Rust, CEO of Laguna, pointed out that Circle’s action is a wake-up call to the cryptocurrency industry as it shows the danger of centralisation. Rust said;

“Circle’s move to ban users of the Tornado cryptocurrency mixing service from trading USDC sets an extremely dangerous precedent and should be a wake-up call for everybody working in the cryptocurrency industry. While much is being said of Tornado’s links to the North Korean state-backed hacking group Lazarus, the likelihood that North Korean users make up anything more than a tiny fraction of a percent of Tornado’s users is small.”

Rust added that the blacklist capability could be (and is) written into Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) token contracts is a huge vulnerability and point of coercion for the industry. 

He added that people warned about the consequences of this feature being added to the USDC contract from day one. Rust added that;

“Now we have a centralized company at the mercy of US regulation running the fourth largest cryptocurrency in the world – and over $55 billion of market cap is on the line. This is truly a scary move. Imagine having a business where your closest competitor could shut you down by adding one row to a database it has complete control over?”

The CEO of Lugana added that while the US Treasury claims their move is due to Tornado Cash allegedly helping to launder $7 billion of money gained from cybercrimes, there are no doubt innocent users caught up in this that have used Tornado for totally legitimate privacy reasons.

Some of the biggest stablecoins, including Tether (USDT), USDC, and BUSD, are issued by centralised entities. 

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MEW is the leading wallet platform for digital assets on Ethereum, and Enkrypt brings its functionality to the Polkadot ecosystem.

MyEtherWallet (MEW), a leading platform in the crypto sector for the access to the Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem, has launched Enkrypt, a user-friendly cross-chain browser extension for Ethereum and Polkadot (DOT).

The web extension, which will support seamless multi-chain transactions for users on Ethereum and for the first time Polkadot, was developed in conjunction with Swiss platform Web3 Foundation, the MEW team said in a press release.

Enkrypt targets Web3 growth

Ethereum’s impending transition to Proof-of-Stake consensus with the Beacon Chain merge and the potential explosion of Web 3 technologies aided the developers’ efforts to create the browser extension.

It is hoped the feature will enable further adoption across the Ethereum ecosystem and tap into the interoperability capabilities possible with the Polkadot protocol. Cross-chain access will also be available through parachain integrations, including with top platforms Acala and Moonbeam. The feature will also extend to all the canary networks across the various protocols.

“Interoperability between blockchains has been top-of-mind for MEW users and is a pivotal step towards broader crypto adoption,” Kosala Hemachandra, founder and CEO of MyEtherWallet said in the press release.

The Enkrypt extension, Hemachandra added, is designed to enhance user experience as they interact across the multi-chain ecosystem.

Users can access the extension on the major browser platforms – Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari – and will benefit from being able to natively integrate with their MEW wallets on browsers and on mobile.

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Ethereum Classic is the best-performing cryptocurrency amongst the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap today.

The cryptocurrency market is performing positively today after starting the week in a poor fashion. The market is up by 1.5% in the last 24 hours, with the total market cap still above the $1 trillion level.

Bitcoin has taken advantage of the ongoing market performance to rally past the $23k resistance level. Ether is trading above $1,600 once again after adding more than 3% to its value over the last 24 hours.

However, ETC, the native token of the Ethereum Classic blockchain, is the best performer in the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap. 

ETC has added more than 10% to its value in the past 24 hours, outperforming the other leading cryptocurrencies in the process.

Ethereum Classic has been performing excellently since the Ethereum community announced that ETH 2.0 (Merge) is coming soon. ETH 2.0 will see Ethereum become a proof of stake protocol.

This will prompt Ethereum miners to migrate to the Ethereum Classic blockchain, which continues to maintain its proof of work mechanism. ETC has added more than 35% to its value in the last seven days and could rally higher soon.

Key levels to watch

The ETC/USD 4-hour chart is positive as Ethereum Classic has been performing excellently in recent days. 

The MACD line remains above the neutral zone, indicating bullish momentum for the cryptocurrency. 

The 14-day relative strength index of 53 shows that ETC could enter the overbought region if it continues with its current trajectory.

At press time, ETC is trading at $36.80. If the bullish momentum is maintained, ETC could top last week’s high of $43 over the coming hours or days. However, it could need the support of the broader crypto market to reach the $50 mark for the first time since March. 

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