en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en fi fi en es es nl fr ca cs en es en fi en en es es nl fr ca cs en es en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en de it en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en nl it war en id pt en en
The Ethereum Merge is expected to take place on September 15. If all goes well, nothing will change for users and holders. But all kinds of interesting games are being played in the background. There is a suspicion that the miners will be continuing the old Ethereum blockchain. If so, what are the implications of two chains running in parallel?
The exact date of the Ethereum Merge is a function of the variable Ethereum hashrate: how hard will there be mining in the coming weeks? Either way, it will happen around mid-September: finally Ethereum will move to a consensus mechanism called proof-of-stake. Energy efficiency is one of the benefits many are waiting for. Except for the miners: they will probably just continue mining the old chain. They will want to squeeze the last bit of value out of their equipment. See, although the old Ethereum is probably worth a lot less after the Merge, the value won't be 0.
It certainly wouldn't be the first time Ethereum has experienced a hard fork. The most famous and contested hard fork was the one from 2016 of Ethereum Classic (ETC) and current Ethereum. As seen in the chart below from Coinmarketcap, ETC has slowly but surely fallen in value against ETH. It now has only a few percent of Ethereum's value. Indeed, nothing significant has been built on this chain. Still, it's noteworthy that the total market of ETC of this 'ghost chain'is still a few billion dollars!
There is a whole history of forks in Ethereum. In most cases, the old chain is "left behind": no one looks at it anymore. So that could be different in this case. The fact that a huge ecosystem of tokens and smart contracts 'lives' on Ethereum today also makes this possible fork special. So are those tokens all duplicated? Will your USDC and your NFTs soon live on two Ethereum chains?
Yes, but that does not mean that both will be recognized by - for example in the case of USDC - the company behind it (Circle). The major parties, such as Circle and Chainlink, have already let it be known that they will only recognize smart contracts and assets on the new, proof-of-stake Ethereum. Virtually everyone will move to this new chain, is the expectation.
If the old chain indeed continues to exist, do those POW ETH tokens have a value? Yes they do. And holders of ETH automatically become owners of the forked ETH as well: that is how it goes with all forks. They are a kind of airdrops.
Currently, there is already a market of futures contracts for this highly speculative (because it may never exist) version of Ethereum. The price of ETH POW on the futures market? About $60 at the time of writing. That's not much compared to Ethereum's $1,900. But it's not nothing. And the price may well rise temporarily. The expectation is that the price relative to the 'real' Ethereum will trend towards 0 in the long term.
Cryptobroker LiteBit registered with the Dutch National Bank
LiteBit voted the best crypto broker for the second year in a row
Ethereum is facing a supply shock just hours after the Merge
The Merge moved Ethereum from proof of work to proof of stake, and the main implication is that the Ethereum blockchain is becoming carbon-neutral. Today was the big day and so far, there have been no hiccups or fatal errors reported. This does not mean that we are out of the woods yet, but it looks pretty good, and chances are high that Ethereum can proceed with the rest of the items on its roadmap. Another factor that comes into play is the supply of Ether, the native currency of the Ethereum blockchain. Is ETH becoming scarce and how is the supply changing within hours after the Merge commenced?
The Ethereum Merge has happened
The most anticipated event in crypto in years has been successful. Around 8.45 AM Central European Time, Ethereum switched from proof-of-work consensus mechanism to proof-of-stake.
How is the EthereumPoW fork going down? Timeline and possibilities explained
The Merge is going to commence tomorrow morning. If everything is going as planned, the transition will be smooth and a few minutes after the Paris upgrade went live, the Ethereum blockchain will switch entirely to Proof of Stake network consensus. What is the EthereumPoW fork, what is the timeline and how can investors possibly play this event?
Boost your trading impact and reaction time in over 80+ cryptocurrencies via instant access to your portfolio with the LiteBit app.