Ethereum developers have decided to delay an update that will force the network to switch its underlying consensus protocol, a major step toward the highly anticipated upgrade for the layer-1 Ethereum blockchain, aiming to disincentivize miners.
The difficulty bomb is a measure that discourages Ether mining. When the system transitions from the legacy Proof of Work to the new Proof of Stake, it will be harder for people to mine Ether since the computational energy may increase exponentially.
One estimate by the Ethereum Foundation predicts that Casper will reduce the amount of energy required to mine Ethereum transactions by up to 99.9%. In addition, PoS networks boast minimal power demands compared to other proof-of-work networks; for example, Polygon and Fantom’s nearly zero power consumption has been lauded as a prime advantage over other networks.
According to Tim Beiko, a core Ethereum developer, the team behind the project is not yet ready and wants to “Make a sanity check” before changing things up. Ever since the news broke out, Ethereum price dropped from $1,660 to $1,230 – or more than a quarter. People can check the current price on an Ethereum calculator.
Beiko also claims there is between a 1-10% chance of postponing the Merge until next year. This might be a big complication ahead of the 2nd most popular cryptocurrency.
An important thing to mention, according to the core developer, is that Ropsten testnet merge was considered a success. While there is no warranty that the mainnet will follow suit, it gives investors hope the official Merge will finally see the cryptocurrency advance.
Vitalik Buterin’s opinion
If there are no major issues during testing, the difficulty bomb will be pushed back from June to August. The delay raises fears that the highly anticipated update aimed at improving transaction throughput and eliminating the risk of chain reorganization may take more time than was previously anticipated under normal conditions.
The difficulty bomb had been suspended multiple times before its activation; subsequent versions will not contain the feature. The PoW switch is still planned, but may be delayed indefinitely due to difficulties on that particular chain.
But Buterin’s attempts seem to not be enough, and as he says, “it might take up to October” for things to happen. At the same time, the news was welcomed with applauses and hopes for a green future for the cryptocurrency.
Ethereum adoption
Worldwide, Ethereum adoption has increased dramatically, and over the last few months, there have been more than 1 million daily transactions on average, but numbers are slowly deteriorating.
While nobody can directly answer this question, experts believe it’s thanks to the high gas price that has put off many potential transactions.
Still, the difficulty bomb is expected to reduce the gas price significantly, thus making it easier for customers to adopt it even more, lots of customers even have troubles with internet access to use their e-money, there comes to help no lag vpn, it protects your information by masking your device’s IP address. While nobody can expect anything from the Merge, many specialists believe it will put Ethereum in a leading position in the cryptocurrency market.
Price prediction for Ethereum
Ethereum has plummeted heavily. In numbers – 35%, and it has been among the worst crypto performers on the market. Something very unpopular for the crypto coin.
Soon, it might test the $1,200 support which is already shaky today. Ethereum (ETH) has seen some tremendous volatility in recent days, illustrating one of the major difficulties investors face when trading cryptocurrency: evaluating approaches for securing and maintaining such holdings. The instability of some low-market-cap coins, such as those that use US dollar-pegged stablecoins, only exacerbates matters.
Ethereum Ropsten testnet was a milestone event for the altcoin and was a significant success for its developers. All but one issue was fixed during this test, though analysts still remain bearish on the price of Ethereum.
2022 is going to be a year to remember for Ethereum, and followers are expecting to see much. While the Merge is expected to happen anytime soon, it might stretch further if there are problems with the launching.
