Ethereum Merge: Community reacts with memes, GIFs and tributes

September 16, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin

Ethereum followers and competitors alike have found their own way to congratulate the Ethereum team on a successful Merge.

It’s been less than a day since Ethereum’s historic transition to proof-of-stake, with most of the crypto community still abuzz with excitement following the successful Merge.

On Sept. 15 at 06:42:42 UTC, the last Ethereum block using the old proof-of-work consensus mechanism was mined. Replacing it is an energy-efficient proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.

Many crypto enthusiasts and climate advocates worldwide have been thrilled by the positive impact it will have on the environment and thus, crypto’s reputation.

Others have just been in awe of the technological feat of upgrading an entire blockchain network without any stoppages.

Ethereum Ethereum
30 minutes ago Now pic.twitter.com/cyQb3pAdtt
— WolfOfEthereum.eth ️ (@Crypto_Wolf_Of) September 15, 2022

Uniswap Labs founder and CEO Hayden Adams told his 232,200 Twitter followers on Sept. 15 that the reduction of Ethereum’s energy usage “will improve the network's public image” more so than anything else in its “entire history.”

According to the Ethereum Foundation, Ethereum’s new PoS consensus mechanism is set to reduce the energy consumption of the entire network by 99.95%.

Adams believes that “people are massively underestimating this aspect of the Merge.”

Ethereum reducing its energy usage by 99.98% will improve its public image more than anything else in its entire history (rightfully so imo).

I think people are massively underestimating this aspect of the merge.
— hayden.eth (@haydenzadams) September 15, 2022

Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse on Twitter called it a “truly incredible technological feat,” and NFT company Yuga Labs told its followers this was a “big step” in scaling Ethereum to its “first billion users.”

Nischal Shetty, founder and CEO of Indian crypto exchange WazirX shared his congratulations, remarking that Ethereum is the “OG of smart contracts” and has played a massive role in building the Web3 ecosystem.

Even the Twitter account behind Dogecoin, now the second-largest PoW cryptocurrency by market capitalization, shared its “much congratz” to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and all those involved in the Merge.

Much congratz to @VitalikButerin and everyone involved in the @ethereum merge. Wow. #EthereumMerge pic.twitter.com/Iu5aQ1wsci
— Dogecoin (@dogecoin) September 15, 2022

Others however, have been skeptical about about Ethereum's new consensus mechanism.

Independent journalist Jordan Schachtel said the Merge effectively transitioned Ethereum into a “WEF (World Economic Forum) coin” which will “by design, puts all value and control in the hands of the people at the top”.

Yes. By design. All the value and control gets scooped up by the people at the top. POS to a tee. https://t.co/P6reCy9O2T
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) September 15, 2022

Cardano enthusiasts at the Twitter account @Cardanians_io said that the Ethereum Merge will do nothing to change its high transaction fees and scalability issues.

The account added that Cardano’s Vasil fork would improve the Cardano network's scalability. The account shared that “Ethereum is essentially catching up to Cardano.”

Earlier this week, StarkWare president and co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson told Cointelegraph that Ethereum’s Merge is “like completing the launch of a rocket” in that there will still be a journey ahead of us.

The Merge was the first step in this five-part process that will eventually bring the smart contract blockchain to an "endgame" of Ethereum's development, according to Buterin.

A successful ETHMerge is absolutely massive for the entire crypto space.

Hats off to the team for executing with the world watching. A historic moment that kept a bullet train on the tracks toward a brighter future for everyone. pic.twitter.com/NkhXhBvsV9
— ║Ꮓ║ (@PlaywinGirl) September 15, 2022

DOGE days of summer: Shiba Inu gains 40% on Dogecoin two months after record lows

July 8, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

SHIB price remains at risk of falling further against DOGE due to weak technicals.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) has grown stronger against its top "memecoin" rival Dogecoin (DOGE) in the last two months, in part due to the token's periodic token burning events and a flurry of project announcements that promises to boost its utility.

Why is the SHIB price rallying?

In detail, SHIB/DOGE gained a little over 40% after bouncing from 0.0001120 on May 12, its lowest level on record.

*SHIB/USD four-hour price chart. Source: TradingView*

Coin burn is the most logical explanation behind SHIB's recent rally against DOGE.

The process involves sending SHIB tokens to a wallet without a master, i.e., removing them out of circulation permanently against the total one quadrillion supply (half of which were sent to Ethereum's co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

The Shiba Inu network has burnt more than 410 trillion SHIB tokens (~$4.5 billion at today's price) from its initial supply, according to data tracking portal ShibBurn.com.

*Shiba Inu supply. Source: ShibBurn.com*

Dogecoin does not boast a coin burn feature and comes with an uncapped supply. That could give traders a reason to accumulate SHIB over DOGE, primarily during a crypto bear market when almost all digital assets fall against the U.S. dollar.

JUST IN: $SHIB @Shibtoken is back on top 10 purchased tokens among 1000 biggest #ETH whales in the last 24hrs

Peep the top 100 whales here: https://t.co/jFn1zIOq03

(and hodl $BBW to see data for the top 1000!)#SHIB #whalestats #babywhale #BBW pic.twitter.com/2o5A0yhHy4
— WhaleStats - BabyWhale ($BBW) (@WhaleStats) July 5, 2022

As a result, SHIB's losses against the U.S. dollar since May 12 stand around -7.5% versus DOGE's 17.5% losses in the same period.

*SHIB/USD versus DOGE/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView*

The Shiba Inu ecosystem grows

Shiba Inu's launch came with a promise that it would be a better version of Dogecoin.

The project attempted so by offering some potential applications, such as smart contracts and an exclusive decentralized exchange called ShibaSwap that enables users to stake SHIB for "BONE" and "LEASH," two other tokens within the Shiba Inu ecosystem.

*ShibaSwap trading volume. Source: Nomics.com*

On July 6, Shiba Inu's pseudonymous developer Shytoshi Kusama (not to be confused with the blockchain project Kusama), teased followers with the launch of an "algorithmic stablecoin" called SHI, coupled with a reward token "TREAT" and a collectible card game for its metaverse.

On the other hand, Dogecoin has Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who has already enabled DOGE payments at the companies' online merchandise stores and is playing with the idea of doing the same on Twitter.

Earlier this week, Musk's Boring Company also enabled Dogecoin payments for its Las Vegas transit system "Loop."

What's next for SHIB/DOGE

SHIB's ongoing rally against DOGE risks exhaustion due to a classic bearish reversal pattern.

Notably, SHIB/DOGE has been fluctuating inside a rising wedge, defined by two ascending, converging trendlines. Rising wedges typically resolves after the price breaks below their lower trendlines, accompanied by a rise in trading volume.

In theory, the breakdown move could pull the price to the level whose length is equal to the maximum distance between the wedge's upper and lower trendlines. The chart below shows SHIB/DOGE in a similar setup.

*SHIB/DOGE daily price chart featuring 'rising wedge' breakdown setup. Source: TradingView*

As a result, the pair risks falling to the 0.0001233-0.0001348 range depending on its breakdown point, a 15-20% drop from current price levels.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Doge Day Then and Now: Lackluster Buzz as Dogecoin’s Price Is 65% Lower Than Last Year

April 20, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Dogecoin Spikes as Elon Musk Takes 9.2% Stake in Twitter

April 4, 2022 The Crypto Briefing

Top Meme Coins by Market Capitalization Shed Billions, DOGE Down 80% Since All-Time High

January 24, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Vitalik deluged after asking for the ‘most unhinged’ criticisms about him

January 14, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Buterin has been both the golden child of crypto, and the recipient of some of the most trenchant criticism. For a bit of fun, he decided today was the day he wanted to dig some notable digs up and share them with his Twitter followers.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin asked for, and received in spades, examples of “the craziest and most unhinged criticisms” of him on Twitter and elsewhere.

Buterin’s lighthearted request came in a Jan. 14 tweet in which he shared some of his own favorite criticisms and revealed the Ethereum (ETH) creator’s lighter side. More than 500 people responded in the first fifteen minutes, although most were in support of Buterin. At the time of writing his tweet had over 1,200 comments.

Among the four criticisms Buterin posted was one from a user that said he “Looks like an alien crackhead.”

What are the craziest and most unhinged criticisms of me you've seen on twitter or elsewhere? Here are a few good ones, I wonder what else people have seen that I haven't! pic.twitter.com/2qvwgNkHyM
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 13, 2022

Vitalik’s father Dmitry recalled a fairly unhinged conspiracy theory that he was actually a Russian secret agent and that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind the creation of Ethereum.

Vitalik himself brought up how “2 different Reddit trolls!” had compared him to Hitler back in 2017 and shared a screenshot of the comparison in a tweet.

Ethereum was an early example of an initial coin offerings (ICO) in the crypto space and has been one of the most successful with over 778,000% in gains since 2015. But to this day it is criticized for being a "centralized premine." One user cited an unhinged take frequently seen during the 2017 ICO craze shows the “spider Vitalik ponzi” and depicts Vitalik as the spider in charge of the Ethereum ponzi web.

Not everything was a criticism, some users took the opportunity to share their favorite memes, including this joke that leans heavily on a pun.

Other users dusted off the classics, including this meme shared in a comment displaying an aged Buterin with a headline from a hypothetical news show reading “Breaking News: Ethereum 2.0 finally ships.” Given how old the meme is, it’s hard to say there isn’t some truth to criticism over the length of time Eth2 is taking to ship.

While the Twitter thread was about all the crazy criticisms Buterin has received over the years, most users who responded did so in jest. And ConsenSys alumnus John Lilic pointed out that despite all the criticism of Buterin, both real and comedic, he has ”been working to make the space better since almost day zero.”

DOGE and SHIB Led the Pack of Meme-Based Assets in 2021, Both Tokens Dominate 85% of the Meme-Coin Economy

December 19, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Look out below! Dogecoin risks further downside after a key support is tested

November 12, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Binance

Some analysts point to Binance's pause on DOGE withdrawals as the catalyst for the altcoin's pullback, but data suggests overheated derivatives markets may have been a factor.

Dogecoin (DOGE) is potentially at risk of losing critical support if the price falls from the ascending channel traded in for the last 53 days. Although technical analysis is not an exact science, a daily close below $0.26 will likely invalidate the current movement.

*DOGE/USD price at FTX. Source: TradingView*

Aside from the Bitcoin-driven headwinds, which are weighing on DOGE price, this week, the meme token underwent a software upgrade and users were requested to implement version 1.14.5. Two important security patches were involved: "Remote Code Execution in Dogecoin QT" (CVE-2021-3401) and "Sensitive Information Exposure on Unix platforms" (CVE-2019-15947).

The latest release finalized a new minimum fee recommendation, following a previous version's reduction of relay and mining defaults. Additional changes included Berkley DB and OpenSSL updates and SLIP44 compatibility for the HD wallet deviation path.

Binance exchange faced issues after the upgrade

Even though users and developers did not experience any setbacks from the changes, Binance exchange unexpectedly suspended all Dogecoin network withdrawals on Nov. 11.

@michilumin, a Dogecoin core developer, explained that Binance had pending transactions due to insufficient fees for a couple of years. Despite recommendations by DOGE developers, the exchange failed to redirect those dormant transactions to their own wallets.

Yes, we're aware, with Binance. Situation is that Binance, when a dogecoin tx, even years ago, was insufficient fees; they just re-issued those transactions (Didn't do RBF or anything) , and assumed that the insufficient fee transactions would remain 'stuck' forever....
— Michi Lumin (@michilumin) November 11, 2021

As the 1.14.5 upgrade successfully lowered fees, those pending transactions were eventually approved, unbeknownst to Binance.

Curiously, in February, Binance founder CZ expressed concerns about Dogecoin being "centralized" and "abandoned."

Some pros/risks of #Doge.

Pros: Cool, fun, PR manager @elonmusk. Decentralized in the sense there are no "core team". It's abandoned.

Risks:
1 address holds 27% of all #DOGE.
Top 20 addresses holds more than 50%+ of all #DOGE
Kinda "centralized" in that sense.
"abandoned".
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) February 4, 2021

Futures markets could have fueled DOGE's correction

Surely enough, the Binance withdrawal restriction news could have been behind the recent price weakness down to $0.25. Still, it's also possible that derivatives markets played an important part because Dogecoin's open interest was facing a key resistance.

*Dogecoin futures aggregate open interest. Source: CoinGlass*

Unlike volume data, futures contract open interest provides a better picture of investors' total risk exposure. Regardless of the trading activity, which can momentarily cede after strong price movements, open interest will remain high as long as players keep their positions afloat.

*DOGE/USD price on FTX, log scale. Source: TradingView*

Notice how the previous 4 attempts to break the $1 billion futures open interest mark resulted in substantial price corrections. Currently, the indicator stands at $850 million, so the imminent risk seems behind.

However, a 17% positive price move to $0.30 could potentially bring the DOGE derivatives metric back to the feared $1 billion open interest. There's also the possibility of traders re-opening their leverage positions and inflating the open interest regardless of the price change.

Therefore, the classical chicken and egg problem stands before us: was Binance's issue the leading cause for the recent crash below the 53-day ascending channel, or was it bound to happen due to excessive leverage positions?

Either way, DOGE traders should keep a close eye on that derivatives indicator to avoid further surprises.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.