Ether is outperforming more popular rival Bitcoin once again as optimism about a long-sought update that promises to reduce the carbon footprint of the world’s most used blockchain seems to be growing. become a reality.
Ether is outperforming more popular rival Bitcoin once again as optimism about a long-sought update that promises to reduce the carbon footprint of the world’s most used blockchain seems to be growing. become a reality.
Ether, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, is up more than 16% in the past seven days, while Bitcoin is up 8.4%. So far this year, Ether is down about 17% and Bitcoin is down about 7%.
The latest performance spike is happening as anticipation builds for the biggest software upgrade in Ethereum’s eight-year history. Called Consolidation and it is expected that within a few months, it will change the way transactions are arranged on Ethereum, helping the network to consume less electricity and run more efficiently. The developers have been promising upgrades for years. Final testing of this software before Merge was enabled started on March 15th and after some initial hiccups like error messages, seems to work smoothly.
Teong Hng, co-founder and chief executive officer of Hong Kong-based Satori Research, said: “The consolidation of ETH on the ‘Kiln testnet’ has made ETH outperform the market. “It is considered an upgrade on the authenticity of transactions in Ethereum. The merge was successful with no major issues reported. ”
Ether surged as much as 4.8% on Tuesday in Asia, hitting its highest since Feb. 17 and trading at $3,043 as of 12:38 p.m. ET in Hong Kong. Bitcoin also recovered, up 4.9% to $43,144.
The new software not only has the potential to make Ethereum more attractive to environmentally conscious investors, but it could also reduce the circulating supply of Ether.
Once merged, Ethereum’s network will stop using millions of powerful servers called miners to order transactions on the blockchain. Instead, people will be able to put their Ethers in a special staking wallet, which will be used to place trades – a system known as Proof of Stake. Manufacturers will not be able to withdraw their funds at least until another software upgrade, which is expected about six months after Consolidation.
Kyle Samani, co-founder of Multicoin Capital, said they will also be less likely than miners to sell the newly minted coins they receive as a reward for being a miner, as they have no shipping costs. perform as high as energy-hungry miners. After the Consolidation, Ethereum’s energy consumption will decrease by 99%.
The merger was expected to take place a few months ago, but was delayed, as the Ethereum developers worked to make sure everything went smoothly. The entire Ethereum economy, including $349 million in Ether, plus billions of dollars in decentralized financial applications and unusable tokens, all depend on it. The Ethereum Foundation has officially scheduled the Merger to take place in Q2 2022, but recently said on a blog that the exact time is yet to be determined – a possible sign of a possible merger. small delay.
Tim Beiko, a computer scientist coordinating Ethereum developers, told Bloomberg: “It would be a catastrophic event if it doesn’t happen this year. However, some miners predict Consolidation will be pushed out in the fall.
