JPMorgan Says Bitcoin Halving and Ethereum Upgrade ‘Are Largely Priced In’

February 27, 2024 Bitcoin.com

Coinbase Could Be a Material ‘Beneficiary’ of Ethereum’s Merge Transition, JPMorgan Analyst Says

August 18, 2022 Bitcoin.com

OpenEthereum support ends with the Merge fast approaching

May 25, 2022 Coin Telegraph

“The usefulness has run its course,” the OpenEthereum team wrote regarding its popular software, “we look forward to the next phase of clean, green and massively scalable blockchain infrastructure.”

One of the most popular Ethereum (ETH) clients, OpenEthereum has ended support for its software in preparation for the upcoming Ethereum Merge.

OpenEthereum creates “clients” or software used to interact with the Ethereum network allowing anyone to create an Ethereum node to mine the cryptocurrency which is currently using a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism.

In a Twitter thread the OpenEthereum team explained that with the Merge approaching and the legacy codebase becoming “increasingly difficult to manage” due to its age that it was the right time to end support.

OpenEthereum support has officially ended.

The repo is now archived, and all maintenance and updates have stopped.

Why? And what next?

Read the
— OpenEthereum is Deprecated (@OpenEthereumOrg) May 24, 2022

The project was formerly owned by blockchain infrastructure company Parity Technologies before it transitioned ownership to the OpenEthereum decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) in December 2019.

At the time Parity wrote they wanted to ensure the codebase is “maintained and lives on for as long as the community finds it useful,” OpenEthereum wrote:

“The usefulness has run its course, and we look forward to the next phase of clean, green and massively scalable blockchain infrastructure.”

The OpenEthereum team wrote that “well documented” clients were required to “navigate the upcoming Merge and successful shift to proof-of-stake (PoS),” directing users to change clients to other providers such as Nethermind or Erigon.

The Merge is the name for the planned upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain which will merge the existing proof-of-stake Beacon Chain launched in December 2020 into the current proof-of-work main net which validates transactions on the network.

The planned upgrade has seen constant delays since first proposed in 2016 and initially had a deployment date of 2019. It was believed the Merge would happen in mid-2022 but delays occurred in April.

Due to the upcoming Repsten testnet merge Ethereum developer Preston Van Loon said last week the upgrade would happen in August 2022 “if everything goes to plan.”

Ethereum Merge a ‘few months after’ June: Dev clears up what’s going on

April 14, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

“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,” said developer Tim Beiko.

The long-awaited Ethereum Merge is set for yet another delay, with developers working on the upgrade estimating a completion time a “few months after” June.

Owing to the success of testing, there was a general expectation the Merge would go through mid year, however the latest setback is unsurprising given that Proof of Stake has been delayed constantly ever since it was first proposed.

That said, the signs are promising that the Ethereum mainnet will actually merge with the beacon chain to become a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network this year. For real.

Ethereum developer Tim Beiko provided the updated timeline via Twitter yesterday, tentatively stating that the core devs are into the final stretch:

“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.”

After noting that his comments caused a stir amongst Ethereum proponents and haters alike, Beiko followed up today by observing “that it can be hard to parse the progress on The Merge when you aren't deep in the process.”

To provide further context, Beiko published a blog post with a deeper rundown.

Didn't expect my tweets from yesterday to cause such a reaction I appreciate that it can be hard to parse the progress on The Merge when you aren't deep in the process.

Tried to provide some context here: https://t.co/QTZ7CuapMf pic.twitter.com/MVXdPEj3NX
— Tim Beiko | timbeiko.eth (@TimBeiko) April 13, 2022

According to the developer, a specific date will not be set until “client teams are confident that the software implementations have been thoroughly tested and are bug-free.”

Central to these latter stages are the trial runs of public test nets such as Kiln, and the roll out of shadow forks which enable devs to test various merge/PoS-related implementations on the network.

Difficulty bomb ticking

Another important factor is the difficulty bomb (an automated increase in mining difficulty designed to make PoW mining less attractive), which Beiko says will start to be noticeable on Ethereum around May and make blocks “unbearably (read 15-20 seconds) slow by August.”

“If client developers do not think they can deploy The Merge to mainnet before block times are slowed too much, it will need to be delayed again,” he said.

Beiko put forward two ways in which the difficulty bomb could potentially be delayed to usher in the Merge upgrade beforehand, firstly combining a bomb delay with merge client releases to delay the “bomb at a certain block, restoring 13s block times, and then activate The Merge shortly after.”

Secondly to separate the bomb delay via network upgrade “which only delays the difficulty bomb” prior to the merge.

“The Merge, unlike previous Ethereum upgrades, will not be triggered by a block time. Instead, it will be triggered by a total difficulty value. Given these are harder to estimate than block times, the delay between choosing a time for The Merge and it going live on the network may be slightly shorter than prior Ethereum upgrades.”

Earlier this week Ethereum Foundation developer Parithosh Jayanthi suggested there is still a fair amount of trial and error to go, after he noted that the testing of three shadow forks resulted in “bugs varying from sync code to request timeouts being found.”

We've done 3 shadow forks of Goerli with bugs varying from sync code to request timeouts being found. Watch the Ethereum R&D discord channels for more. Goerli-shadow-fork-3 is live for anyone to test with, rated at advanced difficulty to join.
— parithosh | (@parithosh_j) April 10, 2022

Following the successful implementation of The Merge and transition to a PoS consensus mechanism, the final landmark on the road map for Ethereum (formerly known as Eth2) is the sharded chains upgrade slated to go live in early 2023. Until then however, the network will utilize Layer-2 networks like Polygon and Optimism to handle scalability and high transaction volumes.

The price of Ether (ETH) has seen a significant uptick over the past 30 days, gaining 20.5% to sit at $3,126 at the time of writing.

Abra CEO Bullish on Ethereum, Predicts ETH Could Hit $40,000

March 14, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Ethereum is becoming ultrasound money, ConsenSys founder says

August 5, 2021 Coin Telegraph

bitcoin maximalist

“With $13 billion worth of Ether locked up in Ethereum 2.0 and $70 billion locked up in decentralized finance, we have enormous demand for the Ether token,” said ConsenSys founder Joe Lubin.

ConsenSys founder and Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Joseph Lubin has implied that Ethereum is transitioning to “ultrasound money” status ahead of the London hard fork slated to activate around 12:30 pm UTC Aug. 5.

During an interview with Bloomberg TV, Lubin was questioned on the imminent EIP-1559 upgrade, which will see Ethereum transition away from a bidding-based fee market to a fixed price and burn mechanism.

Lubin stated that the London hard fork is part of a broader global movement in which the first step is the “democratization of the Earth,” and the second step is the democratization of the decentralized finance (DeFi) system and the introduction of ultrasound money:

“The second step that's in full play right now is the democratization of the global decentralized finance system. And this step is the introduction of something that people are calling ultrasound money.”

The term ultrasound money has been a long-running meme held in Ethereum based communities that mocks Bitcoiners who describe BTC as “sound money” due to its capped supply of 21 million.

The meme refers to the EIP-1559 proposal’s burn mechanism that could result in Ethereum’s supply becoming deflationary after more Ether is destroyed than created. Each transaction will burn a base fee, resulting in a decreasing supply of the asset from now on. Some believe that it will give ETH a stronger value proposition than Bitcoin (BTC) as “ultrasound money.

“So we're a fixed amount of gold on the planet. And the fixed supply of Bitcoin represents sound money to certain people. With $13 billion worth of Ether locked up in Ethereum 2.0 and $70 billion locked up in decentralized finance, we have enormous demand for the Ether token,” Lubin said.

“And now we're burning the Ether token with the introduction of the London hard fork,” he added.

ETH seems unlikely to become deflationary soon after the London hard fork, and the upgrade doesn’t ensure this by default. Twitter user “korpi” highlighted on Aug. 2 that this “doesn't mean that ETH immediately becomes a deflationary asset. For that to happen, ETH burned must be higher than ETH issued in block rewards.” This is more likely after the move to proof-of-stake.

Bitcoin maxi Peter McCormack appeared unhappy with Lubin’s interview and discussions of ultrasound money, noting on Twitter that:

“Ultra-sound money is a disingenuous use of language. It implies that Ethereum is better money than Bitcoin. While directionally centralizing and operating with a flexible monetary policy.”

User “bobMull12314085” found the funny side however, stating that “you maxi’s are so sensitive.”

The Bitcoin community has gotten so pathetic that they actively beg regulators to classify ETH as a security. This has been going on for years.

Some examples of many just from today… pic.twitter.com/9I2k96bLma
— eric.eth (@econoar) August 5, 2021

The London hard fork is a major milestone in the journey to Ethereum 2.0, which will change the network's consensus algorithm from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake or PoS.