Kategorie: Ethereum News

• 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.

The post Ethereum developers confirm Merge dates appeared first on CoinJournal.

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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• 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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