Be glad you didn't bet against ETH. If you did, my condolences.

ETH's price surge began at a time a lot of people thought it would continue going down, now these leveraged positions are being liquidated at a rapid pace.

Total liquidations in the past 24 hours have reached close to $200 million...

Most occurred on Ethereum short positions, with more than than $110 million worth of liquidated assets. Notably, the largest in the overall market was a $2 million BTCUSD position that occurred on Bybit.

Other exchanges experiencing large liquidations include OKEx, Binance, ByBit, FTX, CoinEX, Huobi, and Bitmex, among others. OKEX reported up to 75% of short positions being liquidated for a total of $4.28 million, followed by Binance with $3.36 million in total liquidations.

The Ethereum community will likely prefer the upcoming update to a proof-of-stake system. Even as the Merge approaches, the price of the coin continues to fluctuate. Today's view is more optimistic, but the preceding days were not particularly inspiring.

From August 30 to September 5, the ETH price ranged between $1533 and $1577. It saw a slight increase above that threshold on September 6, however, that was the day when Bellatrix was upgraded. After the surge, the price fell to $1560 the following day, September 7, but ended at $1629.

It is not unexpected, given these price fluctuations, that liquidations are currently pushing the limits of the markets. A large portion of traders cannot maintain their positions, and exchanges are going to close them.

Things are abnormally unpredictable right now, play it smart...

While many would argue the smartest play is simply not using any leverage, the reality is that advice will be ignored by many people regardless.  So, at least meet in the middle, and perhaps use a bit less leverage than you normally would, and set stop losses so you always sell before you liquidate your positions. 

Even while many experts believe that the best move is to avoid using any kind of leverage at all, the fact of the matter is, many people are going to disregard that advice regardless.

At the very least, come to a compromise and consider using less leverage than you typically would. If you're not using stop losses so you always sell before you liquidate your positions, start using them now (you already should have been, in any market condition).

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Author: Adam Lee 
Asia News Desk / Breaking Crypto News

So it's confirmed - A group of developers are working behind the scenes with Ethereum miners to hard fork the Ethereum blockchain after next week’s merge. This means there will still be a version of the network running on the current Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism while the 'official' Ethereum 2.0 blockchain transitions to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).

With that comes a separate and completely independent Ethereum token, currently being called 'ETHPoW' but the coin's official name is still undecided. 

All Ethereum holders will receive ETHPoW automatically, an amount equal to the regular Ethereum you hold...

Major exchanges Binance, MEXC Global, Gate.io, and FTX have already agreed to list and support trading of the forked token. Poloniex is even a step ahead of the rest, and has already listed a placeholder token that will be swapped for the real thing once it's live.

Coinbase and Kraken both say they're open to supporting it, but haven't yet made a full commitment, likely waiting to see if the coin will have any demand or value.

ETHPoW will join the two existing Ethereum tokens - the 'official' Ethereum (ETH) and Etherum Classic (ETC)...

The upcoming 2.0 fork won't be Ethereum's first, the previous fork ended with two coins and two versions of Ethereum - Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. 

To summarize what happened then - in 2016, hackers exploited a security hole in a project called 'The DAO' allowing them to steal about $50 million worth of ETH. A solution was proposed to re-launch Ethereum with the history of the hacked coins completely erased, like it never happened.

How they went about doing this caused a lot of controversy, it was all decided when the proposal was put to a short notice on-chain vote. Only 5.5% of potential voters participated, but since the majority of them voted 'yes', the fork happened.

Those in the Ethereum community who disagreed with the decision simply ignored the change and continued to participate on the original Ethereum network, which became known as Ethereum Classic. 

While Ethereum Classic is considered one of the most successful forked tokens, ETHPoW's Success is far from a 'sure thing'..

When Ethereum Classic started, its support, in large part, came from the controversy that created it.

Some in the community strongly disagreed with the idea of editing the 'true' history of the Ethereum blockchain, and Ethereum Classic kept that intact. Others disagreed with how the decision to fork the coin was made, saying they would support any decision that had over 50% of potential voters backing it, but the fork went ahead without even coming close.  

Ethereum Classic succeeded, and is still active today, because the people behind it truly believed in it.

But when it comes to Ethereum 2.0 - it isn't controversial, it doesn't violate the beliefs of a large portion of the community.  

The only segment of the community united against 2.0 are miners, because once Ethereum has fully moved to the 2.0 Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, miners are no longer needed to verify transactions. Their motivation to continue supporting the old version of Ethereum is entirely profit-based. These are the same miners who loved it when we couldn't send $1 on the Ethereum blockchain without paying a $75 fee.

That just doesn't sound like the beginning of a token that will have long term success.

Take a look at the two most successful forks in crypto's history - Ethereum Classic and Bitcoin Cash. All others have faded away, while these two remain in the top 50 because they're backed by a community of supporters who believe their existence is important. You can find their supporters making passionate arguments on where they think the 'official' version of the coin went wrong, and why these alternatives make things right.

This is why dumping ETHPoW as soon as possible may end up being the smartest move... 

There already is an Ethereum alternative for anyone who doesn't want to support the 'official' version - Ethereum Classic. It's already accomplished the hardest part - establishing itself among the small list of coins traders can trust to retain value, and can be found on every major exchange. 

There just isn't a good reason for another alternative - maybe the Ethereum brand is big enough where it finds support even if it isn't necessary. But even forks of Bitcoin that every Bitcoin holder received for free met a quick death, because people didn't believe they needed to survive. 

How to make sure you'll be able to access your ETHPoW as soon as it becomes available...

Typically the day forked coins go live, is the day they have the highest value, so if you're aiming to be among the first to trade yours, you'll want to transfer any Ethereum you own off of any exchanges and on to a wallet like Metamask, where you hold the private keys.  

Once it launches, you'll be credited an equal 1:1 amount of ETHPoW for any Ethereum you own, and will be able to access it in the same wallet that holds your regular Ethereum. You'll need to switch networks (blockchains) and we'll make sure to post the settings you'll need as soon as that becomes known. 

If your Ethereum is on an exchange they will need to take several additional steps to distribute each users portion, this is because they store multiple users coins together. In the past, some exchange users waited weeks or even months longer than those holding crypto in their own private wallets. 

Do you think ETHPoW has long term potential, or think odds are against it? Tweet us your thoughts @TheCryptoPress


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Author: Ross Davis
Silicon Valley Newsroom
GCP | Breaking Crypto News

We can now confirm that the Bellatrix upgrade is set for September 6th, with the Merge officially beginning on September 15.

The release of the 2.0 mainnet-ready clients just went live, those running 2.0 nodes are instructed to complete all required upgrades by Sept 6th, when the Bellatrix upgrade will happen.

After this, all that's left is the ACTUAL merge to Ethereum 2.0!

Out of all the milestones behind us, I have to say the the most impressive was seeing how the community came together to meet the requirement of 524,000 Ether deposited in the 2.0 contract in order to launch, and seeing that surpassed by over 400%. 

It's safe to say the crypto community is beyond ready for this to happen.

What do you need to do?

If you have no idea what any of the above means, you probably don't need to do anything.  

Everyone who is simply HODLing some Ethereum can relax, everything will happen automatically. 

If you do know what the above means, you probably don't need us to explain anything - the only thing I've seen some people unaware of is that you'll need to have BOTH an execution client (like Besu) and consensus client (like Teku) - so make sure you do, or you'll be pretty useless to the network post-merge.

The Upgrade After the Upgrade...

Once ETH2.0 is live, there's already one major change set to happen sometime in 2023...possibly 2024.

As mentioned already, a huge drop in the amount of computing power needed comes with the initial change to ETH 2.0, the following upgrade makes an equally drastic change to the amount of storage space needed.  

Combine these two factors, and the doors open for phones and various other low-power computers to run Ethereum.  The more devices participate, the more secure the network is. 

It's called 'sharding'. In simple terms, if you wanted to operate a node (which is basically the new way to mine Ethereum) it still requires downloading the entire Ethereum ledger, the database of all transactions in the history of Ethereum.  Thousands of computers maintaining this record is how 1 person trying to cheat immediately stands out, and fraudulent transactions are rejected.

Currently to mine Ethereum you'll need around 120GB disk space if running Windows, and half that if running Linux.   While not a huge amounts for a computer, it's more than most mobile devices.

But with sharding, the database gets split among all the computers on the network.  With a network the size of Ethereum, there's no additional security risk as a copy of every portion of the database will still exist on thousands of computers.

For those who want to get more involved...

With all the excitement around ETH 2.0, many people are looking to do more, like staking their coins and starting to earn more ETH for participating. 

As mentioned, nodes replace miners in ETH2.0 - and many people have an old laptop sitting in a box somewhere that is powerful enough to run one. Because they require significantly less computing power, they also use a significant less amount of electricity. Under the current system of miners, that same laptop probably wouldn't mine enough to cover the electricity costs.

You may be thinking "that sounds great" you may even have an old laptop in the closet collecting dust - well, the bad news is that in order to launch a node there's a requirement to own 32 ETH ($50,000 worth at time of publishing).

The upside is, you won't need to dust off that old laptop - you can participate in a pool.  This is where any number of people, dozens, hundreds, whatever, all contribute their ETH towards reaching the required 32 to launch node, with profits split depending on the total percentage someone contributes.  Many major exchanges will be running pools, some, like KuCoin are already accepting deposits and paying rewards. 

------- 
Author: Justin Derbek
New York News Desk
Breaking Crypto News

Ethereum 2.0 continues to strengthen its foundations before the Ethereum mainnet merges with this new version. In the coming days, it could reach the milestone of 400,000 validators who will verify transactions and ensure the proper functioning of the blockchain. 

At the time of publishing this article, there are over 395,465 validators who met the required deposit of ETH in the smart contract of the Beacon Chain, the "beacon chain" is the first fragment of the new 2.0 network. At current rate of growth, we should see 400,000 validators reached sometime this week. 

These early validators are both larger investors running independent nodes and staking pools with many contributors.  Together they have locked up over $12 Million worth of Ethereum, unable to withdraw it until the final merge of the old chain with 2.0.

Ethereum 2.0's Launch is Right Around The Corner... AGAIN.

We've documented Ethereum founder Vitalik giving speeches on Ethereum 2.0 as far back as 2017.

Then in 2019 we were told it could launch as soon as early 2020.

Everything made sense at this point, knowing that planning began in 2017, even 2020 seems like a long time, but we understood - this blockchain would move trillions of dollars in value in it's future, making sure it's free of errors and secure is extremely important.

So - 2 full years to implement everything, sounds reasonable enough. Remember, the biggest change is moving to a proof of stake algorithm, replacing the proof of work miners with a more efficient system, one that already exists and other blockchains are doing.  They aren't inventing this, they're implementing it.

2020 begins with a short delay but we were told with '95% Confidence' it was still coming in 2020.  After a couple months Vitalik was asked for an update, 'still on track' he said.

Obviously, that didn't happen.

At the time, crypto was exploding in popularity and the high demand made transaction fees skyrocket.

In other words, leaving leaving things as they were became INSANELY profitable...

Let's look back to the day in 2019 when they said Ethereum 2.0 would come in 2020 - all transaction fees for the entire day totaled $119,106. 

Now let's look at June 2020, the month we were told the release would happen is also a month transaction fees hit new all-time highs, in just ONE DAY people spent over $14 million in fees.

While we don't know how involved in mining the Ethereum developers/founders are, it's very likely that if you created a token that relied on miners, you're going to run some mining rigs, at least to help get it off the ground.  Then as your blockchain's popularity grew, wouldn't you increase the mining power you contribute? If you were part of launching it, participating in running it just makes sense.

It isn't speculation to say that upgrading at that point would have put an end to the massive daily jackpot Ethereum miners were enjoying. 

As the date given for Ethereum 2.0's Launch Approaches, Transaction Fee Costs Explode...

Even if you don't find the timing of all this as suspicious as I do, the point is - the upgrade to 2.0 never happened. 

So will it happen this time?

With so many other blockchains taking people away from Ethereum, fees have finally come down again.  Because so many alternatives now exist, and traders have shown they have a limit to how long they're willing to accept ridiculously high fees - it looks like there's more incentive for Ethereum to upgrade than not.

At the rate Ethereum is losing users to alternatives, there's more profit in launching 2.0 in order to bring people back.

While over the past years more projects chose to launch on other blockchains than ever before, many still also chose Ethereum.  However, talk to those project's leaders and virtually all of them share that their choice was made not because they're satisficed with the current state of Ethereum, but because they're counting on Ethereum 2.0 to resolve the high trading fees, which they all acknowledge has cost them users.

In conclusion...

For these reasons - I believe 2022 is the year they finally deliver, Ethereum 2.0 is coming - and this is the first time that statement is true.  
------- 

Author: Justin Derbek
New York News Desk
Breaking Crypto News

Get $40 Bitcoin for $20 NOW: Click here!

 

Speaking at the Permissionless 2022 Conference this week in Florida, Ethereum Foundation Sharding researcher Justin Drake said:

“It won't be June, but likely in the few months after. No firm date yet, but we're definitely in the final chapter of PoW on Ethereum.”

He than elaborated, saying...

“As far as we know, if everything goes to plan, August—it just makes sense. If we don't have to move, let's do it as soon as we can.””

Finally, giving his reasoning behind the date...

“Strong desire to make this happen before difficulty bomb in August. Stars are aligned.”

What is a difficulty bomb? 

The big deal about Ethereum 2.0 is the change to Proof Of Stake mining, the essentials you need to know are: this no longer requires the use of power-hungry mining rigs used in the current 'Proof Of Work' mining.  

The current type of mining is considered bad for the environment, because miners have computer processors working at maximum levels to solve mathematical puzzles, included in this process is encrypting and processing transactions, and creating newly minted coins which are given to miners as a their reward.

The difficulty bomb was created by Ethereum developers in 2016 with the merge to 2.0 in mind.  Once it begins, the bomb will exponentially increase the difficulty level of the puzzles required for proof of work mining, eventually making that mining impossible to do. 

The difficulty bomb is intended to stop miners who wish to continue mining the Ethereum 1.0 (Proof of Work) chain once the network has fully moved to Ethereum 2.0 (Proof of Stake).

The old and new method were supposed to overlap for awhile before the difficulty bomb kicks in, but they've lagged so long on Ethereum 2.0's launch that back in 2016 when they scheduled the difficulty bomb, they imagined Ethereum 2.0 would have launched long before now.  

A short history:

Nov 2017 "The Ethereum Killer Is Ethereum 2.0" Nasdaq reported.

June 2019 "Ethereum “ETH 2.0” Genesis Block May Launch in January 2020" Blocknomi reported 

Feb 2020 "95% Confidence': Ethereum Developers Pencil In July 2020 for Eth 2.0 Launch" Coindesk reported. 

May 2020 "Vitalik Buterin Says Much-Delayed Ethereum 2.0 Still on Track for July Launch" Coindesk reported.

From this point onward, there's a never-ending supply of articles saying the launch is near, sometimes based on nothing and sometime fueled by statements from Ethereum developers that imply this is the case. 

So, does this mean we can definitely expect the merge complete and Ethereum 2.0 up and operational by August? 

Nope.  Developers can propose pushing it back, it's happened before. 

While it would be yet another failed milestone, something most developers would find embarrassing, in the case of Ethereum's dev team it's just another entry on the massive list of all the other meaningless deadlines they gave the public. 

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Author: Mark Pippen
London News Desk 
Breaking Crypto News

In the Ethereum 2.0 smart contract, which makes its depositors validators of the network, 6,805,325 5 ethers (ETH) are deposited, amounting to more than USD 21 billion -- more than the reserves of at least 120 countries.

Nearly 206 thousand addresses have deposited 6.8 million ETH, and each had to "lock" a total of 32 ethers in the smart contract.

According to the data provided by the World Bank, many Latin American countries are included among these nations. El Salvador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Honduras, Paraguay, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, and Guatemala all have reserves that range between USD 3 billion (El Salvador ) and USD 18 billion ( Guatemala )

APR is currently 6% and this figure is expected to decline as new validators add their ETH. 

While there's many higher interest yielding crypto products, most people staking ETH believe the token itself will soon explode in value, and view this as gaining an extra 6% while HODLing. 

Ethereum is up over 18% in just the last week.

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Author: Fernando Perez
Latin America Newsdesk

Ethereum developers have informed us that the test run, which has been running on the Ropsten testnet for the last 3 weeks, is officially being called 'a success'.

Known as the 'London' update - this is considered by many as the most important update to Ethereum since it's creation.

Important For One HUGE Reason - This Should Solve The Problem Of High Fees...

'London' is actually a package of five different updates (AKA EIPs - Ethereum Improvement Proposals) among them is EIP 1559 which  changes the way commissions are paid on the network, where each transaction will pay a base commission (a part of this fee will be burned) and the tip figure for miners is established.

Miners aren't so excited, they claim that their income could be reduced - but their crying is music to the ears of any user who has been paying absurd fees for months.  The miners had a run of inflated fees they should never have expected, and while I'm sure it was a great time to be an ETH miner, it obviously was something that wouldn't and couldn't last forever. 

Better Late Than Never...

This has taken way too long. I say this as someone who could easily do 20 transactions on the Ethereum blockchain on a normal week, between trading and dApps - so I'm not some 'hater' spreading FUD, or shilling for some competing blockchain. 

I've shared my frustrations on how long this was taking in a previous report, and it was doing research for that report when I realized the reason I felt like I had been waiting for so long, is that I actually was.

I looked back to when rising fees first became a concern, and found posts made in 2018 where Ethereum developers were discussing the problem of high fees - which at the time was $0.74 cents, a price we'd celebrate today. 

But back then, that $0.74 cents was worthy of an urgent response "As the number of transactions on Ethereum keeps going up and up, we have no time to lose" said one developer.  

If there was 'no time to lose' in 2018, there's no way around it - you're pathetically slow if you don't deliver until 2021. 

So - When Is It Happening?

The London update will go live along with block 12,965,000 being processed - we're on block 12,833,326 right now. 

Assuming Ethereum transactions maintain their current average - we're looking at Thursday Aug 5th, around 2:00am Los Angeles time.  But it's probably best to just think anytime between Aug 2nd and Aug 7th.


-----------
Author: Ross Davis 
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco Newsroom / Breaking Crypto News

First, let me say I write this as someone who first bought Ethereum when it was still under $100, and in the years since both ETH and countless ERC20 tokens held a majority share of my crypto portfolio.

I wasn't someone who 'had some' - I was a true supporter, someone who believed the things I was witnessing with smart contracts and the ability for anyone to create a coin on the Ethereum blockchain would be what sends crypto into the mainstream.

For awhile that vision is exactly what seemed to be playing out, but the time has come for everyone who cares about this crypto thing to stop downplaying the disaster that is Ethereum.

Seems I have just discovered how long nostalgia and sentimental value will allow me to pretend everything is okay, because suddenly I cannot avoid seeing just how bad things have become. 

Think Of How You Explained Crypto To Your Friends and Family - Ethereum Has Made Liars Of Us All...

When explaining your crypto obsession to friends or family you probably used words like 'fast' and 'low fees' - two things that have not applied to Ethereum in quite some time. Since November 2020 every transaction has been over $1, and for all of 2021 it's been over $10.

Today try to do a trade on Uniswap, and (at the time of publishing) you will see the Ethereum network attempt to charge you a trading fee of $150+ for s simple trade, that's after a  $60+ fee just to authorize a coin you hold to be traded in the first place.

If you were to sell $200 worth of Ethereum on a DEX (decentralized exchange) right now - you would receive $0 for it - the entire transaction swallowed up by fees.  Yes the exchange's fees are a part of the problem - but the price of using it for trading is absolutely relevant.

Today A New Record Was Set - $69 Average Transaction Fee! 

That's simply sending from one wallet to another, a standard person to person payment. If you wanted to send a friend $50, your total cost would be $119.  

The #2 cryptocurrency in the world right now is indeed a total disaster.

How foolish do we look when it comes down to the basic primary function - sending money from one place to another - tech from the 1970's would outperform Ethereum on both speed and costs.

It's even worse when we consider this is many people's first impression. Crypto is exploding and the first coin someone owns is typically BTC or ETH, often because Bitcoin's already high price intimidates a lot of people.

When I hear that a friend is one of these people making their first crypto purchase I find myself saying 'congrats!' but thinking 'dear god please never let him seriously try to use this for anything more than trading it on the same exchange he bought it on'.

Spending $50 To Send $100 - Which Takes 15 Minutes To Arrive - That's The OPPOSITE Of What Crypto Is Supposed To Be...

There's no valid reason this needs to be happening.  I'm going to avoid specifically naming any alternative blockchains because the Ethereum devs at fault will point to that and claim this piece was just 'shilling' for whatever coins I mention - I won't give them that opportunity, Ethereum is the only coin we're discussing here.

Just be aware there's no debate - Ethereum's success is purely based on timing, not performance.  There's a fairly long list of alternatives that could easily handle Ethereum's transaction load and keep fees at a price point in 'cents' not dollars.  But Ethereum took it's place next to Bitcoin on every chart at a time when it was able to handle the much smaller amount of transactions - and that's some extremely powerful marketing.

Imagine a coin with these specs attempting to launch today, it would attract 0 investors, 0 users, and no one would want their name associated with it. 

Ask yourself - how would Ethereum market itself if it was brand new, but had the fees it has today.  The images in my mind are hilarious. 

People buy it because it's the #2 cryptocurrency - and that helps to keep it the #2 cryptocurrency...

They tell us a solution coming with Ethereum 2.0, and that's true... once it actually happens. Instead, as fees got higher the process of upgrading to 2.0 shifted from something exciting right around the corner, to a sluggish process where things that were 'just around the corner' are now coming 'someday, eventually'.

They say it's because they want to make sure it's safe and secure, which we all want - but that excuse is complete bullsh*t.  Qualified developers would be finished with the goals laid out in 2017 by now - and I'm not saying they're unqualified. Knowing what Ethereum's developers are capable of is actually how I arrive at these conclusions. At best they're slacking off, at worst, it's deliberate.

Also worth mentioning - scaling is an issue that if a project is managed correctly, has no effect on the users.  If your users are feeling negative effects of your growth, the project is mismanaged.  The growth means the project has the resources (money) to solve the scaling. 

There's HUNDREDS of coins running on proof-of-stake validation algorithms (a method of processing transactions, aka mining) but Ethereum devs are pretending they are inventing this already existing technology. How likely is it that while they drag their feet they're also mining and grabbing as much of these disgustingly inflated fees as they can for themselves?

Look at this video we posted in 2019 of Ethereum founder Vitalik talking about Ethereum 2.0 and tell me if you're left with the impression that he's talking about things that still won't be here by mid 2021. Does he come across like he is speaking about an abstract 'rough draft' concept that will take years to become a reality?

We can go back even further and the reality of what's happening becomes crystal clear when you look at the Ethereum.org page for Eth 2.0 - it now says sharding (which will dramatically increase the amount of transactions processed) has a vague release date of sometime in 2022.

Yet all the way back in 2018 Vitalik was tweeting 'sharding is coming' and this Reddit post, also 3+ years old, once again does NOT leave the reader with the impression that we're looking at concepts that still won't be a reality in the middle of 2021. 

Another 2018 post made by a developer with the role of 'Building Ethereum 2.0' states "As the number of transactions on Ethereum keeps going up and up, we have no time to lose. Let’s get started." so we can rule out the possibility that Ethereum's success caught it's developers off guard and they've been scrambling to catch up. Fees were 0.74 cents when this post emphasizing the urgency of providing a solution was made. 

There's No Way To Measure The Damage This Is Causing...

The crypto world looks like a joke as long as something considered one of the 'top coins' fails on both price and performance. Bitcoin seems to have fully made the transition to being branded a 'store of value' thus competing with gold - on that note Bitcoin is easier to buy, store, and sell.  So an argument can be made that it is the superior choice to gold.

No such argument exists when it comes to Ethereum.  It holds a position it no longer deserves.

I explained why I can't name specifics, but alternatives are starting to grow at a surprising rate. One is regularly now passing Ethereum's daily volume, which even shocked me.

After seeing that, my opinion shifted a bit - I was under the impression so much had been built on Ethereum that their position was locked in and it this all amounted to 'tough luck' and the crypto world would just have to ride it out. But we're starting to see tokens deciding to have both an ERC20 version, and one on another faster, lower fee blockchain.

Currently, having an ERC20 token provides easy instant exposure to a huge number of traders, but projects worry the fees may cause someone to wait on buying a coin longer than they typically would.

But with traders a shift is happening fast - those who were once completely focused on coins they could find on Etherdelta/Forkdelta, then Uniswap, no longer limit themselves to the Ethereum blockchain - after doing so for years.

The numbers don't lie - Ethereum's top competitor had 393K wallets created yesterday, beating Etherum by over 100,000 wallets.  While some would respond by pointing out many people already have an Ethereum wallet, that doesn't explain how they also did 9X as many transactions.

In Closing...

I believe the current situation is the result of a 'we're untouchable' mindset within Ethereum's core developers - the lack of urgency comes from feeling like theirs no consequences for lagging.  I believe if they maintain this mindset for much longer it'll be the mistake that haunts them for the rest of their lives.

It takes a couple high profile projects with ERC20 tokens to officially switch to another blockchain, and receive praise from their users for doing so - and the smaller coins will follow as being on Ethereum officially becomes a 'downside' to more and more people.

A coin switching blockchains could now be seen as freeing their supporters from fees they found slightly annoying at $1-$10, and downright insulting at over $50.

You would be surprised at how much a new project relies on having a high number of people buy small amounts of $500 or less worth of tokens. At Ethereum's current rates I suspect they will lose most purchases of $200 or less, and all purchases from people who would have spent $100 or less.

As someone who one supported Ethereum, I'd love to once again.  I strongly suggest those in a position to do so, change anything in their timeline that says 2022 to 2021 and shift your mindset to that of a software company losing customers until your new version is released, once again making your product competitive. 

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Author: Ross Davis 
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco Newsroom / Breaking Crypto News

The proposal to improve the Ethereum network and free users from the currently insane transaction fees is known as EIP-1559.

In short, it consists of establishing a market base rate to include transactions in a blocks while adding tips to incentivize the miners. Subsequently, base costs would be burned, reducing supply inflation.

Problem: The solution for users, and what the miners are objecting to, is the SAME THING...

The proposal ignited debate after several miners rejected the initiative, as they will lose a part of their reward that now will be burned, as they have stated during discussions with the community.

The goal is to lower the cost of transaction fees, which currently make Ethereum look like a complete joke. Anyone with the misfortune of explaining the world's 2nd most popular crypto to a friend new to the market has probably found themselves scratching their head explaining the popularity of a technology that costs $10 in fees just to send someone $25.

If Ethereum started this way, it would have been adopted by no one, and currently Ethereum exists only because people believe this situation will end.

Really worth noting - if Ethereum said that it's current fees were permanent, it would become worthless overnight.  Alternatives with all the capabilities of Ethereum, and none of the issues with fees already exist. 

This isn't being treated as the disaster it is...

In it's current state, Ethereum is pointless, or worse, a step back in technological advances for transmitting currency. Unless you were hearing a lot of complaints from people that the methods they were using were too fast, and didn't have enough fees - Ethereum hasn't solved anything. Anyone who has been into crypto for just a few months has spent more money sending ETH than if they just used PayPal or any old payment processor.  

Some miners are unwilling to see a change in the Ethereum ecosystem and remain set on sticking to the current method that relies on commission auction to process transactions. These miners reject the fixed fees and the proposed compensation model, saying that if a new system were implemented, their income would drop dramatically. To every user, miners 'income' is their 'fees'.

This is why Eth2.0 can't come soon enough, as miners are replaced with nodes in a PoS (Proof Of Stake) system.  This requires those benefitting from validating transactions to hold a significant amount of the token, meaning they likely won't want to risk their own holdings becoming worthless by hindering advancements. 

I say this as a long time Ethereum supporter - enough already!

Currently 2.0 has a timeline of milestones, a step by step process that initially seemed reasonable.  But what the timeline doesn’t have - is times, dates, deadlines.

While I’m sure it’s great to not have the pressures most professional developers deal with, it may be necessary to shift towards functioning more like a private company, with angry users and deadlines to meet, which helps by both speeding up development and keeping people from moving on.

A crypto-ecosystem civil war...

Not quite as nasty as Bitcoin's internal battles, however, predictably users who thought some relief was coming aren't happy at miner's last ditch effort to thwart it. The overall sentiment being that we've all put enough money in miner's pockets recently.  

"IMO, this exposes some of these miners for what they are" said one user on reddit, he continued "Ethereum is just a network that pays them. They "love it" because it's paid them a lot, but they have zero attachment to its community, users, or apps".

Another reddit user said "Now users and apps who MIGHT have been sympathetic to the miners' cause at the time of the PoS merge are just going to look back on this "show of force" event and cite it as a demonstration of how miners are not neutral, and that if push comes to shove, they may even be willing to attack the network"

In closing...

I'm not quite sure how I feel - and that's the problem.  This is because I don't know if we're a 'few weeks', a 'month', a 'couple months', a 'few months', or 'several months' away from the high fee problem being solved. 

I, as many others clearly are as well, have been dabbling in using other blockchains that I had no intention of ever using until this. At some point this can drag on long enough where people will be saying it's been weeks since they've done a transaction on the Ethereum network - and there's something about tech where people tend to not look back.

I hope those in a position to influence the future of Ethereum are aware of just how easily they can lose that #2 spot - there's no shortage of projects dreaming of taking it. 

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Author: Ross Davis 
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco Newsroom / Breaking Crypto News

One of the biggest changes to Ethereum with Ethereum 2.0 is the introduction of staking - allowing people to now earn income from the coins they would otherwise have sitting in their wallet.

Staking ETH allows someone to become an Ethereum validator, what was once known as mining.  However, with the change to Proof Of Stake on the Etheruem 2.0 blockchain, mining is replaced by staking coins.

Current earnings estimate is 13.49% APR just from staking the Ethereum you would be HODLing anyway!

Typically You Would Need 32 ETH To Do This, But Not Here...

Staking good for the health of the Ethereum ecosystem. You help secure the network, process transactions, and like miners, earn rewards in the process.

Now you can bypass the 32 coin limit by Staking at KuCoin Exchange, where they will automatically team you up with other ETH holders to reach the 32 ETH requirement. 

Click here to join KuCoin and begin earning!

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Author: Oliver Redding
Seattle Newsdesk / Ethereum 2.0 Staking

Ethereum Has A 200% Return So Far This Year, And Just Hit $500+ For The First Time Since June 2018...

Ethereum's has managed a large rebound over summer and winter if 2020 , with it's market cap going from $13 Billion in Jan to $53 billion today  Likewise, the quantity of daily transactions has increased as well. In the last 24hrs Ether buying and selling in dollars totaled $3.5+ billion in volume.

Ethereum hasn't seen these prices since June 2018, when amid a bull market it struck its all-time high of $ 1,300. But it's fluctuated since then, and for awhile went surprisingly low, the worst being June of last year falling underneath $100.

Upgrades Are A Big Reason Why...

The increase in the price of ETH coincides with an increase in its hash rate (or computing power) of the network, which on Thursday reached a new historical high - exceeding 250 terahash per second (TH/s)!

But the big one is early next month, when the long awaited Ethereum 2.0 launches! Many expect this to come with strong rally behind it, saying they want to get in before the 2.0 rally truly gets going.

Will The Rise Continue? 

Which brings us to this interesting point - will everyone buy ahead of Ethereum 2.0's launch, making for a slow day when it actually arrives? Or will the lunch have enough hype behind it to fuel a rally of new investors following the experienced investors buying now? 

I'm leaning towards believing Ethereum will successfully have a double rally run-up.  The excitement around crypto is big, and Bitcoin's price (logically or not) scares some people off.  I think there's a lot of people who will take 'the next best thing' and if it's priced under $1000 they won't hesitate to make this their jump-in point!


Author: Ross Davis 
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco News Desk / Breaking Crypto News