Ethereum’s (ETH) long-awaited “The Merge” upgrade is set to kick off this September. The Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit organization behind the blockchain, is making sure all of the preparation goals are crossed off the checklist. To finish off the preparation phase, Ethereum quadrupled the reward for white hat hackers that are able to point out a bug in the system.
The non-profit foundation behind the Ethereum blockchain is quadrupling the rewards it will pay to friendly hackers who uncover bugs in the code of its much ballyhooed software upgrade to as much as $1 million
The Merge Coming Sooner Than Expected?
The computing power behind the network support has to do a lot with how smooth the transition to Proof of Stake (PoS) will go. As the final test on Ethereum’s (ETH) Goerli testnet is successfully completed, the mainnet switch is as ready as ever. Therefore, the Ethereum Foundation announced yesterday that the initial phase of the merge is likely to get going on September 6th.
Firstly, the Bellatrix upgrade on Beacon Chain is going to officially start on 11:34:47am UTC on Sept 6, 2022. The second part of the upgrade is called Paris and it will likely kick off between September 10th and 20th. However, the exact date depends on the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD). It has to reach a certain TTD figure, which highly revolves around the Proof-of-Work (PoW) hash rate.
Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) Launches Wrapped & Staked ETH
Top names in the crypto world are laying the groundwork prior to the highly anticipated upgrade. The Merge is supported by both Binance and Coinbase, the two biggest exchanges. Moreover, Coinbase introduced cbETH, an Ethereum (ETH) ERC-20 token.
The wrapped and staked Ethereum (ETH) is “A utility token that represents ETH2, which is ETH staked through Coinbase.” The main difference between cbETH and ETH2 is that the new token can be sent outside of the Coinbase platform. ETH2, on the other hand, will have to be locked up until The Merge is finalized.
Coinbase will add support for Coinbase Wrapped Staked ETH (cbETH) on the Ethereum network (ERC-20 token). Do not send this asset over other networks or your funds will be lost.What is cbETH? Let’s dive in
Ethereum (ETH) Is Back to Winning Ways
The second largest cryptocurrency asset finally got rid of the bears and recorded a profit of 4.5% in the last 24 hours. At press time, Ethereum trades at (ETH) $1,708.78. However, Ethereum (ETH) still has a deficit of 7.7% in the last fortnight. As the king of the altcoins is still down by 65% from its ATH, it will be exciting to see if ETH 2.0, or “The Merge,” can give the cryptocurrency a substantial boost to reach levels never seen before.
$ETH breaks $1,700
On the Flipside
- Vitalik Buterin might be losing influence over Ethereum (ETH), as making adjustments on the blockchain is becoming more difficult.
Why You Should Care
The upcoming upgrade to Ethereum’s (ETH) blockchain will have a broad impact on the crypto industry. The long-awaited upgrade is a part of the series of major upgrades for ETH, and represents 55% completion of the network.
Find out more about Coinbase’s precautionary measures in relation to The Merge
Learn what Ethereum’s (ETH) Merge means for institutional investors
Read about Ethereum’s concluding test before The Merge
