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ether It rose to its highest level in two months after developers successfully completed Final dress rehearsal A pivotal upgrade is expected next month.
The world’s second largest cryptocurrency surged to $1,927 on Thursday, hitting its highest level since early June, according to data from CoinMetrics. The token last traded at $1,912, up 5% in the last 24 hours.
On Wednesday, Ethereum conducted its last beta round for a “merger,” a major event that is expected to make it faster and more energy efficient. One of ethereum’s test networks, called Goerli, simulates a process similar to what the mainnet will implement in September. Testnets allow developers to experiment and make the necessary adjustments before starting updates to the main blockchain.
The merger will see the Ether core blockchain move from a Proof of Work platform to a more efficient model called Proof of Stake. Proof of Work consensus mechanisms rely on crypto miners to verify transactions. On the other hand, Proof of Stake networks require validators to hold a certain amount of tokens for sharing, which makes them less power consuming. The event, which has been postponed several times, is now expected to take place on September 19.
Once completed, the upgrade is expected to speed up transactions on the Ethereum network and make it more energy-efficient, and backers hope it will address criticism of the Ethereum network. Environmental Impact of Cryptocurrencies. This has led some investors to bet that the ether might end up stealing bitcoin’s thunder. Bitcoin has lost some of its gains against other coins in recent years, as its market dominance has slipped to less than 40% from around 70% at the start of 2020.
For IT specialist Kaj Burchardi, whether Ethereum eventually displaces bitcoin as the king of cryptocurrency is “largely irrelevant” given that the two are not in direct competition with each other.
said Borchardi, managing director of BCG Platinion, the IT-focused division of the Boston Consulting Group.
“Ethereum… is not a use case. It offers possibilities to implement really good use cases like NFTs [nonfungible tokens] and banking products on the platform. Bitcoin is a use case.”
After a successful merger test, Ether led a broad rally among digital assets on Thursday, with the total value of all cryptocurrencies rising by more than $70 billion a day to $1.2 trillion. Bitcoin It surged 6% at $2,4507, hitting a nearly two-week high, while Binance’s price soared. BNB The token was 3% higher at $330.
However, cryptocurrency investors in general were nervous after A catastrophic implosion of $60 billion of stablecoin, which sent shock waves through the crypto market and helped the collapse of investment firms Celsius, Three Arrows Capital and Voyager Digital. The entire crypto market has lost nearly $2 trillion in value since it peaked above $3 trillion in November.
CNBC’s Mackenzie Segalos contributed to this report
