Ethereum Merge Achieves Another Milestone as ETH Price Climbs 19% for the Week
KEY POINTS
- Ethereum programmers have successfully completed deploying upgrades to the second of three public test networks (testnets) to run through the Merge. This latest stage, known as Sepolia, paves the way for the final deployment across the Goerli testnet.
- Once all the testnet programming is cleared and glitch-free, the PoS enhancements are slated for rollout across Ethereum's mainnet later this year.
- The Ether coin -- the native crypto of the Ethereum blockchain -- is up more than 19% following the Merge progress for the week to $1,216 according to CoinMarketCap.
The Ethereum Merge from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) cleared another testnet hurdle and appears on track to go live later this year.
Ethereum developers achieved another milestone toward the transformation of that blockchain away from its energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) consensus method for transaction approvals to a more eco-friendly proof-of-stake (PoS) approach. Dubbed the Ethereum Merge, the migration from PoW to PoS has been successfully rolled out across the second of its three testnets.
That sets the stage for the final testnet deployment later this summer, with a final planned "go live" launch across the actual Ethereum blockchain later this year. The Merge has been widely touted as a significant programming solution that will alleviate virtually all the criticisms leveled against the Ethereum network including high transaction fees, low throughput, sluggish settlement times compared to newer blockchains, as well as congestion on the network.
Ethereum's native blockchain crypto Ether (ETH) has been steadily climbing on the news and is up more than 19% for the week at $1,216 per coin on cryptocurrency exchanges. That's more than twice the 8% increase for Bitcoin for the same time period.
Is now the time to buy Ethereum?
There's no denying that the Ethereum blockchain has the largest number of developer apps in the crypto space. And despite the current crypto meltdown, Ethereum still handles the bulk of transactions for popular Web3 uses such as NFT trading and decentralized finance offerings.
Additionally, the Ethereum supply is steadily moving toward a deflationary level as more ETH coins are removed from circulation as an intentional offset to newly minted coins. Since the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-1559 launched in August 2021, more than 2.51 million ETH have been burned, producing a net reduction in supply of 56.34% according to WatchTheBurn.com.
While not financial advice, and keeping in mind that investors should always know their risk tolerances and conduct their own research, Ethereum is a top-tier digital asset that will successfully emerge from the current crypto winter -- eventually. Investors who don't take advantage of these current low entry points could regret it in the future.
Our Research Expert
Tor Constantino is a corporate communications executive and business writer with an MBA. Since 2017, he has written about cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and crypto's potential to revolutionize finance. His writing has appeared in outlets including Entrepreneur, Forbes, Fortune, CEOWorld, and Yahoo!.
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