Posted on

Ethereum L2 TVL Enjoys 284% Growth In The Past Month Ahead Of Goerli Merge

Total value locked (TVL) on Optimism, a layer-2 scaling solution for the Ethereum blockchain, has increased 284% in the last month, according to data from DefiLlama. Users lending and borrowing assets on Aave through Optimism’s layer-2 chain make up the vast majority of TVL.

Ethereum Optimism TVL Surges

In anticipation of The Merge update, which will see the blockchain switch from a proof-of-work network to one based on proof-of-stake, investors have been bidding up digital assets tied to the Ethereum ecosystem.

The merge will be tested by Ethereum developers on the Goerli testnet on Thursday, August 11. If everything goes according to plan, the mainnet merging will be approved on September 19. The mainnet merge would probably be delayed if there are issues with the Goerli merge.

The Merge’s anticipated launch date has been set for September 19, according to a recent Ethereum developer call. With Rollups, or off-chain computations, Optimism, an Ethereum layer-2 blockchain, aims to extend the ecosystem and expedite transactions. On Optimism, transactions are entered, and on Ethereum, they are completed.

ETH/USD trades at $1,853. Source: TradingView

The project is home to 35 protocols, including automated market maker Velodrome, decentralized exchange Uniswap, and derivatives exchange Synthetix. The Ethereum blockchain’s current capacity of 30 transactions per second is inadequate to manage the enormous amount of user trade orders on exchanges (including cancellations). Nevertheless, according to some analysts, the network might scale to 100,000 transactions per second with The Merge upgrade, with layer-2 solutions improving this capacity even further.

Optimism blocks are constructed and executed on layer-2 while user transactions are batched up and submitted to the Ethereum layer-1. On layer-2, transactions are immediately accepted or rejected with no mempool, enabling a fast user experience. Correspondingly to the TVL development, the project’s namesake tokens have also rallied by 300% during the same period.

Dai on Optimism

From 30 million to 140 million in 5 days. pic.twitter.com/AQlNWvX6c9

— Maker (@MakerDAO) August 9, 2022

Goerli Testnet: A Brief

The Ethereum network will be one step closer to its biggest update yet in less than 24 hours. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has been preparing to switch from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to the significantly less energy-intensive and, in some people’s opinions, more decentralized Proof-of-Stake for years (PoS).

Senior Ethereum developers stated last month that the so-called “Merge” to “Ethereum 2.0” will occur on September 19. However, there is still a challenge for developers to overcome before the “Merge” can be implemented on Ethereum’s mainnet.

Developers want to implement the merging on one last testnet after completing the switch from PoW to PoS on two of Ethereum’s main testnets (Ropsten and Sepolia) in June and July.

From its mid-July lows under $1,000, Ethereum has increased by more than 80%, and at last check, it was trading in the mid-1,800s. While most of this has coincided with a larger cryptocurrency market rebound amid an uptick in macro mood (Bitcoin is up over 25% from its mid-July lows), analysts have indicated that anticipation ahead of the merger has been a key tailwind driving ETH higher.

Featured image from iStock Photo, chart from TradingView.com

Posted on

Ethereum Prepares For Ropsten Testnet Merge As Token Struggles To Hold $2k Support

The Ethereum 2.0 update is generating a lot of buzz and interest, and we’re getting closer to its launch than ever before.

Ethereum 2.0 Goes To Testnet

Testing for Ethereum’s long-awaited Merge is progressing, though not at the rate that many had hoped. Testing on Ropsten, Ethereum’s largest and primary testnet, which has the closest similarity to the mainnet, is the next key milestone in the Merge testing process.

Ropsten testing will be merged on June 8, according to Ethereum client developers. Although there is no official indication on when the Merge will take place on mainnet, it is expected to happen in the second part of this year.

On Monday, Ethereum DevOps developer Parathi Jayanathi submitted a pull request for the Ropsten testnet Merge configuration code, indicating that it is ready for implementation.

The Merge is Ethereum’s long-awaited upgrade, in which the current Ethereum Mainnet and the beacon chain PoS system will merge.

Because it has a comparable network structure to the Ethereum Mainnet, this testnet is considered the best replication. Developers may now perform realistic deployment testing before making changes to the mainnet.

The Ropsten testnet Merge will combine the proof-of-work (PoW) network with a new proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus layer testnet, with a May 30 launch date. It will simulate what will happen when Ethereum and the Beacon Chain merge and the network becomes a PoS network.

Related Reading | New Data Shows China Still Controls 21% Of The Global Bitcoin Mining Hashrate

Testing how the merge would work on Ethereum’s main public testnet would be one of the final assessments. As a result, the Ropsten public testnet is regarded as the most accurate clone of the Ethereum Mainnet, as it uses a similar network structure and allows developers to test their work in a live environment.

Online, community developers have expressed their enthusiasm for the testnet announcement. According to Preston Van Loon, an Ethereum core engineer at Prysmatic Labs:

Ropsten testnet is getting merged on June 8!

Merging Ropsten is a huge testing milestone towards Ethereum's mainnet merge later this year. 🎉 https://t.co/X7eLIMA72g

— prestonvanloon.eth @ Permissionless (@preston_vanloon) May 18, 2022

Price Fails To Hold $2K

ETH is dropping inside a falling wedge on a daily time frame (in yellow). It’s worth noting that the wedge bottom is lined with the $1700 horizontal support level (in green), which could signal a trend reversal.

As a result, if the bulls can hold the green zone, the price will be more likely to rise towards the $2450 level of static resistance. The price is more likely to begin a protracted regression phase if the bears continue to suppress the market and breach below the green support zone.

ETH is trading on dynamic support (in green) against Bitcoin, which has blocked additional price decreases four times in the past.

The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, down 4.1 percent in the last 24 hours to US$1,974, has lost 48% of its value since 2022.

ETH/USD trades below $2k. Source: TradingView

And crypto investors who bought on November 16, 2017, when the Ethereum price was at an all-time high of US$4,892, will have lost just over 60% of their investment.

Ethereum’s market cap has decreased to US$236 billion from well over half a trillion dollars at its height, despite maintaining its number two position.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Indicator Hits Historical Low Not Seen Since 2015

Featured image from iStockPhoto, Charts from TradingView.com

Posted on

Ethereum Leaves ETH 2.0 In The Past In New Roadmap Rebrand

Ethereum 2.0 is one of the most-anticipated upgrades in crypto presently. The upgrade which will bring better scalability and cheaper prices to the network is nothing short of needed given that demand has driven these two things to its brink on the network. This is why Ethereum developers have been hard at work for two years trying to usher in this new era.

However, it seems that the name ETH 2.0 is no longer doing justice to the upgrades being performed on the network. In a recent announcement, Ethereum Foundation announced that it is retiring the name ETH 2.0 in favor of something that better describes the work being done on the network.

ETH 2.0 Is Now Consensus Layer

In a blog post on its official website, the Ethereum Foundation announced its decision to change the name of the upcoming upgrade from ETH 2.0 to the “Consensus layer”. The post explains that the reason for this was the need for terminology that clearly embodies the changes that were being made to the network.

ETH 2.0 had worked while at the beginning when the goal was simply to move users from the present proof of work chain, also known as ETH 1.0, to the new proof of stake mechanism. The goal has changed drastically since then.

Related Reading | Ethereum Fee Averages Remain Above $30 Despite 35% Drop. Price Pump Incoming?

For the total completion of the upgrade, developers had discovered that it would take several years to complete. Additionally, the upgrade had evolved at various points to make changes focused on the long-term rather than just moving to the proof of stake mechanism.

ETH climbs back to $2,400 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

The new terminology provides a better understanding of what is being done on the network. This way, users are no longer confused when it comes to distinguishing between the two. This would greatly reduce scams that take advantage of the confusion generated by the terminology by asking them to swap their ETH for ‘ETH2’. It would also clear up the confusion that arises with staking, where stakers might believe they might be getting ‘ETH2’ tokens and not ETH tokens.

How Is Ethereum Price Affected?

The announcement of the new terminology has had no bearing on the value of the altcoin in the market. Ethereum which had suffered greatly in the crash, losing about 40% of its value, has trended upward in the last day. However, the change in value remains insignificant as ETH is still a long way away from hitting the $3,000 point. Prompting users to speculate that the bear market is here.

Related Reading | Market May Be Suffering But Bitcoin And Ethereum Will Pull Back Stronger, Bloomberg Analyst

As for ETH 2.0, now known as the “Consensus layer”, it is still unknown if the scheduled merge will actually take place this year. The project has so far been rocked by delays as devs encounter new issues. But for now, the upgrade remains on track.

As per the announcement, the ethereum base layer, also known as ETH1, will now be called the execution layer. While ETH 2.0 will be referred to as the consensus layer. Both of these layers combined are what make up the Ethereum blockchain.

Featured image from Forkast, chart from TradingView.com

Posted on

By The Numbers: How Ethereum 2.0 One-Year Stats Stack Up

Ethereum 2.0 has been long in the making ever since the Beacon Chain went into operation in 2020. Since then, there have been numerous upgrades made to prepare the network for the final proof of stake move. Most recently of this has been the Kintsugi testnet that allows users of the blockchain to get a glimpse of what is to come when “The Merge” finally happens.

It has been a year since the move to ETH 2.0 was set into motion and there have been some notable happenings since then. In this article, we’re going to look at the year in review and all that has happened with the network since then.

Related Reading | Ethereum Exchange Withdrawals Reaches One-Year Low. Why This Matters

Over 7% Of ETH Supply Staked

Staking on the Ethereum network has ramped up since the move to proof of stake was announced. Instead of requiring miners to compete and verify blocks like in proof of work, the network now requires validators who need 32 ETH to run a node. Each validator gets rewarded for helping confirm transactions in the network and making it safer to use.

The number of ETH staked on the network had quickly reached 5% of the total supply less than a year after the Beacon Chain was launched. December marks a complete year after the launch and there are now over 8.6 million ETH staked on the network worth a total of $33.5 billion. The number of validators has also grown to over 271,000 in this time.

7.33% of ETH supply staked | Source: Arcane Research

There is now a total of 7.33% of the total supply of ETH staked on the Ethereum network and this number is expected to grow in the coming months as it moves closer to the merge. After the merge is completed, APY is expected to increase due to unburnt fee revenue and MEV which will now go to stakers instead of miners in the new proof of stake mechanism.

Ethereum Moving Towards The Merge

The race towards complete merge with Ethereum 2.0 is still on but there has been some infrastructure put in place to ensure that the network gets there. One of those is the multi-operator validator network, Lido, built by the Obol Network. This allows for liquid staking tokens on the ethereum network.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Leads As Markets Sees Record Outflows. Bear Market Incoming?

Rocket Pool is also another decentralized staking service that went live on the main net. These two have been part of helping the network push towards 2.0 while making it easier for users to stake their tokens.

On Monday, the Kintsugi testnet was released. It is the first public testnet of significance that was released on ethereum and will precede some other testnets to come, that show how the network will work after the merge.

ETH continues downtrend | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com
Featured image from BitcoinKE, chart from TradingView.com

Posted on

What Ethereum 2.0 Looks Like As Vitalik Buterin Celebrates Its Birthday

The Ethereum 2.0 upgrades of the consensus layer built by multiple teams in the ecosystem promise to bring a “more scalabe, more secure, and more sustainable Ethereum”, and now Vitalik Buterin celebrates 1 year since the proof-of-stake Beacon Chain went live. Eth2 or Serenity aims to “support 1000s of transactions per second” so the high gas fees problem can be solved.

The Beacon Chain, one of  Ethereum 2.0’s distinct sections, has allowed users to be Eth2 validators by staking Ethereum, reportedly earning up to 10% annually, diminishing miners for transaction validation, and adding new blocks.

Ben Edgington, the lead product owner of the Teku Eth 2.0 client, had explained that “Slashing penalties were reduced at the start of the Beacon Chain to increase stakers’ confidence. Now that we are all much more comfortable with staking, penalties are gradually being increased towards their ‘crypto-economically correct’ values.”

The August update in the London hard fork proceeded to implement EIP-1559, changing the transaction fee system. Like so, the ETH burning started, which now sees a total of 353,615.10 ETH burnt during the past 30 days with a burn rate of 8.19 ETH/min. The general expectation is that if ETH supply gets limited, its price will likely increase.

Related Reading | Over 1 Milllion ETH Has Been Burned Since Ethereum EIP-1559

Eth 2.0 Roadmap At The Beacon Chain’s Birthday

The next stage, The Merge, is possible to happen around May or June next year if the code is completed by February. This will ‘merge’ the Beacon Chain into the mainnet. As it has been explained, it is meant to finalize the transition to PoS, “Ethereum’s history on the PoW network will be preserved as the PoS consensus layer is merged in as a replacement for PoW.”

Buterin Vitalik publishes an updated roadmap diagram of Ethereum protocol development’s current state

Tim Beiko stated that “the Arrow Glacier upgrade is scheduled for block 13,773,000, which is expected on December 8, 2021”, and called for users to upgrade their nodes. He expects the Kintsugi devnet to go live early this month, this is intended to “implement a release candidate design for The Merge”, which would be followed by “testing, risk management, and governance”.

Both Beiko and Edgington have said that Ethereum devs are mainly focused on the Eth2 final steps.

The move to proof-of-stake will not immediately provide any significant extra throughput to the Ethereum chain, so I don’t expect it to have a measurable effect on gas prices. The scalability strategy in Ethereum now revolves around layer-two solutions like the various roll-ups that are currently being deployed. Once The Merge is done, we will focus on providing data shards within the Ethereum protocol that will allow roll-ups to scale massively.

Obol Labs image tweeted by Collin Myers

Project lead of Obol Labs, Collin Myers, was glad to see Distributed Validator Technology (DVT) “on the top” of Vitalik’s Eth2 roadmap, and explained it as a new infrastructure that enables “Active-Active redundancy across Eth2 infrastructure deployments”, and suggested “a world where validator key theft becomes nearly impossible due to applied cryptography”.

We believe a more resilient Ethereum can be realized through a collaborative infrastructure protocol that protects against the disappearance of a few network operators. DVT can an enable this by allowing a group of network operators to act as one single validator together – something we like to call a multi-operator validator.

Related Reading | Ethereum Rallies 5%, Why ETH Could Surge To New ATH Above $5K

 

Ethereum price at $4,536 in the daily chart | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

Posted on

Ethereum Supply Shock Grows As Reserves Decrease, ETH 2.0 Contract Increases

The Ethereum supply shock has been growing as exchange reserves continue to decrease and value staked in ETH 2.0 contract rises.

Ethereum Supply Shock: Exchange Reserves Go On Decreasing While ETH 2.0 Staking Contract Grows In Value

As pointed out by a CryptoQuant post, ETH exchange reserves have been decreasing while the coins locked in the staking contract have been rising.

The “all exchanges reserve” is an Ethereum indicator that highlights the total number of coins stored in wallets of all exchanges.

When the value of this metric goes up, it means there is an increase in the supply of ETH on exchanges. Such a trend may show that there is a selling pressure in the market as investors are sending these coins to exchanges for withdrawing to fiat or altcoin purchasing.

A decrease, on the other hand, would imply the supply of ETH is going down as investors take their crypto off exchanges for hodling or selling through OTC deals. This behavior may show that buyers feel bullish on the coin’s future.

Related Reading | Only In Crypto: A Croissant Lists Potential Bullish Drivers For Bitcoin And Ethereum In Q4 2021

Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the all exchanges reserve for ETH:

The indicator’s value looks to be decreasing while ETH 2.0 total value staked is moving up | Source: CryptoQuant

As the above graph shows, the Ethereum exchange reserves have been steadily heading downwards since quite some time now.

This is despite ETH’s recent sharp increase in price. It seems investors are willing to hold on as they believe the price will appreciate even further.

Related Reading | TA: Ethereum Outperforms Bitcoin, What Could Extend Gains Above $4K

This is creating a supply shock in the market. An increase in demand from big whales like institutional and retail investors now can blow the price up.

In fact, on-chain data suggests institutional investors have already started getting involved in the crypto as 400k ETH exited the crypto exchange Coinbase a few days back.

By the way, the chart from before also includes the value currently staked in ETH 2.0. As this contract is seeing a steady increase in the number of coins being locked, it looks likely that some of the supply going off exchanges is going into this contract. This further backs the idea that investors are in Ethereum for the long term.

ETH Price

At the time of writing, Ethereum’s price floats around $3.8k, up 5% in the last seven days. Over the past month, the crypto has gained 9% in value.

The below chart shows the trend in the value of the coin over the last five days.

ETH’s price has moved rather sideways in the last few days | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView
Featured image from Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, CryptoQuant.com

Posted on

Ethereum Fee Burns Clocks $100 Million, Here’s Why The Burn Is Important

The Ethereum network has now continuously burned base fees for a week straight and in that time frame, the amount of ETH burned has hit $100 million. With over 32,000 ETH burned in the space of seven days. The fee burn rate fluctuates given the network traffic, but the burn continues regardless. Depending on network traffic going forward, the burn rate is predicted to hit 4 ETH per minute very soon.

Related Reading | Ethereum Set To Explode According To Market Dominance, Crypto Analyst

The rate at which the ETH is burned currently sits at around 3.38 ETH per minute. This puts the current burn rate at over $10,000 burned per minute. The burn shows that the EIP-1559 upgrade is working as intended, which in the long run will hopefully make the nature of ETH deflationary. But that is not happening just yet. The burning of the base fee is still in its early stages, although it is working smoothly.

It will take a while for the rate at which new ETH is burned out of circulation to be high enough that ETH’s supply becomes deflationary. But that remains to be the end game here. And this is why the burn is so important to the network.

Related Reading | Here’s What Happens To All Of The Crypto Assets The IRS Seizes

The fact that Ethereum does not have a capped supply like bitcoin means that an unlimited number of ETH can be put into circulation. This is one feature that ETH has in common with fiat, the unlimited supply. It is one of the main reasons why the move to ETH 2.0 is so important to the network.

Putting Less ETH Into Circulation

The ETH burn is basically taking away a huge chunk of ETH that miners would have been given for mining blocks and “burning” the coins. EIP-1559 introduced a base fee mechanism that is determined by the wallet where a transaction is generated and this base fee would be burned. Then the owner of the wallet where the transaction is generated can then add a ‘tip’ to a transaction if they want their transaction to be included in a block faster, basically leading to faster confirmation times.

Related Reading | Why A Shocking Altcoin Season Could Be On The Horizon

In just a week, 32,000 ETH has been burned. This 32,000 ETH would have formerly been added directly into circulation as it is given as a reward to miners. But now, this amount that would have added to supply has been completely taken out of the equation.

For now, it may seem like miners are getting the short end of the stick with this, but ETH potentially becoming deflationary is a win for the market as a whole. Less supply would make ETH coins more valuable, which, in turn, would drive up the price of the asset.

Ethereum Price Going Forward

ETH price has had an interesting run these past three weeks. The asset price which had broken below $2,000 last month experienced a price surge that sent the price surging past $3,000 this month. Ending a two-month-long streak of a painful downtrend.

ETH price dips as the week draws to a close | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

Following the launch of the EIP-1559 saw the Ethereal network become even more popular amongst investors. And as the popularity of the network grew, so did the popularity of its native token, ETH. With more investors coming into the market, the value of the asset has skyrocketed. Although now there has been a bump in the road as a dip in the price has sent ETH barreling back down below $3,100.

Related Reading | Bulls Take Over Market As Ethereum Price Surpasses $3,000, Why Rally May Continue

Short-term, recovery is imminent, as is the case following most dips. But the scale of the recovery will be hard to tell. A 3% price drop in the last 24 hours has seen ETH lose $200 off its price in the same time period. But overall, the market remains bullish and it looks like the dip is only a small obstacle that will be scaled in no time.

Featured image from Coingape, chart from TradingView.com