Ethereum Mainnet Merge

At 2:43 AM Eastern Time at block 15537393, Ethereum’s Proof-of-Work era came to an end, ushering in a new age of Proof-of-Stake Ethereum. With no downtime and in the course of just 12 seconds, Ethereum block production successfully transitioned from a globally-distributed group of miners running specialized hardware to a globally-distributed group of validators staking ETH. CM Research was awake and excited to witness this ambitious feat of upgrading a network securing many billions in value. In this special update, we share what we ...

Ether led digital assets lower after the groundbreaking software upgrade of the token’s underlying network turned into a “sell-the-news” event. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market value after Bitcoin dropped as much as 8.9% to $1,460. The token, already down more that 50% this year, had rallied more than fivefold last year in part on optimism about the software revision. “Now the excitement around the Merge is done, and we don’t have a catalyst for Ethereum in the short term,” said Martha Reyes, head of research at BeQuant, ...

A complex software change to the cryptocurrency ethereum holds the potential to dramatically reduce its energy consumption — and resulting climate-related pollution. But the transition known as “the merge” is not going to do the trick by itself. With the change enacted late Wednesday, ethereum — the world’s second most valuable cryptocurrency after bitcoin — has effectively eliminated the energy-intensive task of “mining” new coins on its blockchain. Mining requires enormous computing power, which translates to huge energy ...

Proof-of-work blockchain Ethereum Classic has recorded a large spike in hash rate as miners close shop on the now proof-of-stake Ethereum. On Thursday, its hash rate — a measure of crypto mining output — shot up to 183 terahashes per second (TH/s), 280% higher than the 64 TH/s hash rate 24 hours ago. Notably, Ethereum Classic's hash rate has witnessed a 500% growth in the last 30 days, according to data from mining pool 2Miners. The sudden hash rate growth followed Ethereum's successful transition from proof of work to a proof of ...

Ethereum’s shift from proof of work to proof of stake may cause the Securities and Exchange Commission to take a closer look at regulating the cryptocurrency as a security, Chair Gary Gensler hinted on Thursday. Gensler’s comments came hours after Ethereum’s big shift, known as The Merge, took place. The SEC chair mentioned the Howey test, a tool regulators use to determine whether an asset is a security, when he spoke with reporters after a Senate hearing. “From the coin’s perspective…that’s another indicia that under the Howey ...

Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake was quite literally a once-in-a-lifetime event. Thanks to the public and immutable nature of the blockchain, an NFT marking that historic moment —- minted right at the boundary of the Merge — has proven an enticing prospect for a collector’s item. Niche NFT project VanityBlocks was conceived to allow a person to fill an entire Ethereum block with a single transaction, and then turn that block into an NFT. The project’s founder wanted the final Ethereum proof-of-work block, bad. Normally, a ...

Despite Ethereum’s historic transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, mining pools are increasingly signing up for mining on the upcoming proof-of-work (PoW) version of Ethereum. EthereumPoW, the community advocating for ETHPoW, or the PoW Ethereum version, has released a list of mining pools that are going to continue mining after the ETHW mainnet launch. According to EthereumPoW, some major Ethereum mining pools are going to continue mining despite Ethereum’s switch to the eco-friendly PoS consensus mechanism. At ...

Buyers still remain under sellers' pressure as most of the coins are in the red zone. The rate of Ethereum (ETH) has declined by 0.90% after the transition to the PoS algorithm. On the local chart, Ethereum (ETH) is being very volatile today, as the day started with sharp growth. However, buyers could not hold the gained initiative. Currently, the rate has returned to the hourly support level at $1,585, the breakout of which might cause a further drop to the $1,550 mark shortly. On the daily time frame, bears have absorbed ...