Ethereum Surges 13% Helped by Excitement Over Provisional Timeline for ‘The Merge’

On Saturday (July 16), the Ethereum ($ETH) price is rallying hard since the Beacon Chain community manager revealed the provisional date for “The Merge” (i.e. the date on which the network is making the transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake).

Here is how Ethereum Foundation explains The Merge:

“It’s important to remember that initially, the Beacon Chain shipped separately from Mainnet – the chain we use today. Ethereum Mainnet continues to be secured by proof-of-work, even while the Beacon Chain runs in parallel using proof-of-stake. The Merge is when these two systems finally come together.

“Imagine Ethereum is a space ship that isn’t quite ready for an interstellar voyage. With the Beacon Chain the community has built a new engine and a hardened hull. When it’s time, the current ship will dock with this new system, merging into one ship, ready to put in some serious lightyears and take on the universe.

“When ready, Ethereum Mainnet will ‘merge’ with the Beacon Chain, becoming its own shard which uses proof-of-stake instead of proof-of-work. Mainnet will bring the ability to run smart contracts into the proof-of-stake system, plus the full history and current state of Ethereum, to ensure that the transition is smooth for all ETH holders and users.“

Anyway, on Thursday (July 16), the following tweet — which stated that the new provisional date for The Merge is September 19 — seems to be the powering Ethereum’s latest rally.

According to data by TradingView, on Coinbase, ETH-USD was trading around $1075.76 at 13:30 UTC on July 14. Currently (i.e. as of 17:54 UTCon July 16), ETH-USD is trading around $1356.17, which means an increase of over 26% since then (and an increase of 13.68% in the past 24-hour period).

On May 20, this is what Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin said about The Merge at the (virtual) ETH Shanghai Web 3.0 Developer Summit:

“The biggest news in Ethereum this year, I think, is The Merge. So, The Merge is the switch from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. We have been working on switching to proof-of-stake almost since the Ethereum project began. And we’ve been working on proof-of-stake for about sevenyears now, but finally, all of that work is coming together. If everything goes well, then the likely plan is for the The Merge to happen in the summer.

“I know Justin, a few days ago, suggested that August is a possible date for The Merge to happen. If there are no problems, then The Merge will happen in August. But of course, there’s always a risk of problems. There’s also risk of delays. And so, September is possible and October’s maybe possible as well, but The Merge is at this point working, like it’s very close to happening. So Ethereum will finally become a proof-of-stake network.“

Image Credit

Featured Image by vjkombajn from Pixabay

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