These are good times for Ethereum, with the altcoin recording a market cap of over $500 billion for the first time this month. In fact, ETH breached its resistance levels on the charts very recently, hitting a new ATH of $4,361 in the process. Is there any way to explain this hike?
Well, there were many factors at play. However, it is also because the main network is getting closer to the new Altair network. Following the same, Ethereum users and developers will be gearing up for the long-awaited “Merge” in late 2021 or early 2022. Just recently, it burned more than 600,000 ETH due to its EIP update in place.
Of late, different ETH developers (including the Chief Executive) have shared and broadcasted some updates about theMerge. Here’s one, for instance,
The @ethereum "Altair" Network Upgrade is fast approaching – have you upgraded your node?
? – Spread the word & claim your Altair Awareness POAP (+ Upgrade Resources) ? https://t.co/kW2NL2V0NV
?️ – @ethStaker Altair Network Upgrade Livestream ?https://t.co/DWrCu8cMCe pic.twitter.com/e5jNPh7OTA
— unvΞtica.Ξth ? ? (@unvetica) October 22, 2021
According to the aforementioned, the new upgrade for Ethereum is aimed purely at validators. It does not change anything for general coin users. The update affects only the beacon chain consensus mechanism. In addition to users, updates will not have any effect on contracts.
However, here’s an interesting yet important query – Is the network even ready?
According to the Nodewatch service, currently, around 16% of nodes remain unsynced while 29% of nodes are not ready for the upgrade. Now, could this be hinting at something severe? Only time can tell.
Regardless. different analysts and developers within and outside ETH’s ecosystem have shared bullish scenarios about the ecosystem and the altcoin. Consider the following,
I think #Ethereum is heading home soon pic.twitter.com/IxV2BtzINK
— Benjamin Cowen (@intocryptoverse) October 24, 2021
Meanwhile, another analyst opined,
Over $2 billion worth of Ethereum has now been burned by EIP-1559 $ETH will be the biggest deflationary asset in human history pic.twitter.com/wAgGyS8zK3
— LilMoonLambo (@LilMoonLambo) October 25, 2021
Certainly looking at these bullish sentiments, there isn’t much to worry. At least for now.
In addition to this, here’s another statistic,
“According to OKLink, the current number of validating nodes on the Ethereum beacon chain has reached 25,063, surpassing 250,000 for the first time, and the number of validating nodes on the beacon chain has increased by 7,358 in the past 30 days.”
Here’s the graph that highlights the same –
Source: Twitter
Nonetheless, is ETH still considering the $5k mark or is it bound to fall post this Merge? Well, if it chooses the former, only time will tell if Ethereum can outperform Bitcoin anytime in the future.
