Ethereum Completes Merge Successfully, Crypto Markets Take a Beating: This Week’s Recap

The past seven days saw the successful transition of Ethereum’s network from a Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm to one governed by Proof-of-Stake. The event was described by many as one of the most significant technical achievements in the industry and is put on par by importance with Bitcoin’s halving. However, the total market declined by some $20 billion over the same period as many cryptocurrencies are charting decreases.

Bitcoin is among the outliers in terms of price performance over the past seven days. BTC’s price is charting a 2.7% increase compared to where it was trading a week ago. As a matter of fact, the cryptocurrency increased to as much as $22,500 on September 13th, but that’s when the bears stepped in and pushed its price towards $20K. At the time of this writing, BTC is found at slightly below the important psychological levels, and it seems that the battle for it is ongoing.

Elsewhere, the event that everyone is still talking about went through successfully. Ethereum’s proof-of-work mainnet merged with the PoS-based Beacon chain, putting a halt to the PoW era once and for all. However, the short-term effect on ETH’s price seems negative. Since implementing PoS, the cryptocurrency is down almost 8%, pushing ETH below $1,500 and charting a total decrease of 10% for the past seven days.

It’s worth noting that altcoins are trading in the red collectively. BNB is down 1.7%, XRP is down 3%, whereas Polkadot dropped by a more considerable 7%.

This has pushed Bitcoin’s dominance – the indicator used to gauge BTC’s share relative to that of the entire market – towards 38%. This is indicative of its better performance compared to altcoins.

Now that the Merge is through, it’s very interesting to see how the market will shape up going forward. Ethereum Classic’s network, for once, saw some benefits as its hashrate increased almost immediately after the upgrade took place. There was also a hard fork that saw the creation of a PoW-based Ethereum network, and some of the leading miners have expressed support.

In any case, with one of the biggest technical implementations passing successfully, it’s very interesting to see how the market will shape up in the coming weeks.

Market Data

Market Cap: $1,006B | 24H Vol: $72B | BTC Dominance: 37.7%

BTC: $19,697 (+2.7%) | ETH: $1,451 (-7.8%) | ADA: $0.462 (-3.7%)

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss

The Merge is Official: Ethereum’s Transition to Proof of Stake Now Complete. The wait is finally over. Ethereum migrated to a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm and officially abandoned proof-of-work. The merge was successful, and the network is currently functioning as intended.

Bitcoin Hash Rate Marks New All-Time High After 55% Increase in 2 Months. Bitcoin’s hash rate marked another all-time high. This happens after a 55% increase in less than two months. The hash rate is currently moving up in stark contrast with the asset’s price, which is once again finding itself in a challenging situation.

Prominent Ethereum Mining Pools Extends Support to ETHW Mining. Some of the most prominent Ethereum mining pools, such as F2Pool, Poolin, AntPool, Nanopool, BTC.com, and so forth, have extended support for ETHW mining. This happened after the Merge officially ended proof-of-work and, thus, mining on Ethereum’s mainnet.

Craig Wright Claims to Have Destroyed Hard Drive With Satoshi Wallet Keys. Craig Wright, the man who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto – the inventor of Bitcoin – has made it clear to the Norwegian court that he doesn’t plan on proving he is the creator cryptographically. He said that he has destroyed the hard drive that contained Satoshi’s keys.

Someone Paid $60K (36 ETH) in Fees to Mint the First NFT on Ethereum After The Merge. A user has paid a whopping 36 ETH in a bid to make history and mint the very first NFT on Ethereum after the Merge. The non-fungible token became the first to be minted when the network is governed by the proof-of-stake consensus algorithm.

Ethereum Can’t Compare to Bitcoin as Money: Tether CTO. According to Paolo Ardoino – the Chief Technology Office (CT) at Bitfinex and Tether – Ether won’t be able to compare to Bitcoin as money. He argued that this is because ETH has no fixed supply.