The Merge starts when the Bellatrix upgrade is activated on the Ethereum blockchain and is anticipated to be finished between September 13 and 16. The Merge of the Ethereum blockchain has begun and will most likely begin between September 13 and 16. Tuesday saw the activation of the Bellatrix upgrade, the network's last "hard fork" before the Merge, ushering in Ethereum's long-awaited switch from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS).
To be clear, following the Merge, users probably won't notice many significant changes. The time required to add a new block to the chain will simply decrease from 13.6 seconds to 12 seconds, "marginally" impacting Ethereum's transaction processing capacity and fees, according to a Citi research report. According to Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin, those will get better with a series of subsequent improvements. At the Ethereum Community Conference in Paris in July, Buterin declared that, instead of the current 15 transactions per second, "Ethereum will be able to perform 100,000 transactions at the conclusion of the roadmap."
But the essence of ether, Ethereum's native cryptocurrency, will radically shift. According to Ayoub, Ethereum's switch to proof-of-stake solidifies ether as a yield-bearing asset (the network's validators currently earn about 4.2% annually) and is anticipated to decrease ETH's issuance, which is expected to happen at the same time as a 4.2% annual reduction in ETH's issuance. This will improve the asset's prospects as a store of value.
A sizeable group of investors, including Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management, which manages the biggest cryptocurrency index fund in the world, believe that ether will eventually surpass all other cryptocurrencies in value. Along with the new economic structure, Ethereum's move to near-carbon neutrality may attract a large number of institutional investors who are concerned about environmental regulations. At some time in the future, he asserts, "it's very likely that we'll see ethereum flipping bitcoin." It is pursuing what I consider to be a wider addressable market.
In a cryptocurrency market worth slightly under $1 trillion, ether's $190 billion valuation currently behind bitcoin's $381 billion. The stablecoin tether follows well behind at $67.5 billion
In spite of this, Hougan cautions that "anyone who's expecting the Merge to happen on Sept. 15 and ETH price to double, I think will be sadly disappointed." In the weeks leading up to other anticipated cryptocurrency events, such as the halving of bitcoin, there is sometimes a sell-the-news tendency.
