Ethereum's Merge on Sep. 15 turned out to be a sell-the-news event, which looks set to continue. Notably, Ether (ETH) dropped considerably against the U.S. dollar and Bitcoin (BTC) after the Merge. As of Sep. 22, ETH/USD and ETH/BTC trading pairs were down by more than 20% and 17%, respectively, since Ethereum's switch to Proof-of-Stake (PoS. What's eating Ether bulls? Multiple catalysts contributed to Ether's declines in the said period. First, ETH's price fall against the dollar appeared in sync with similar declines elsewhere in the crypto market, driven by Federal Reserve's 75 basis points (bps) rate hike. Second, Ethereum …

The Federal Reserve hiked rates by 75 basis points on Sept. 21 and Fed chair Jerome Powell projected another 125 basis points increase before the end of the year. If that happens, it will take the benchmark rate to 4.4% by the end of the year, which is sharply higher than the June estimates of 3.8%. The Fed also intimated that it only expects rate cuts to be considered in 2024. The expectation of higher rates pushed the 2-year Treasury to 4.1%, its highest level since 2007. This could attract several investors who are looking for safety in this uncertain …

The cryptocurrency industry has grown at a staggering pace. There are now almost 21,000 different coins in existence, across a variety of subsectors. From metaverses to decentralized finance, investors are spoiled for choice. But a burning question, especially among crypto skeptics, is this: Are there too many cryptocurrencies? We've repeatedly seen how new altcoins can be created in the blink of an eye. Tokens popped up hours after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars — pumping and dumping on low liquidity. And following the death of Queen Elizabeth, the markets were flooded by a flurry of "memecoins" bearing …

After a successful Ethereum Merge, all eyes are set on the next phase of transition that would introduce key scalability solutions on the platform, including sharding. Market experts believe sharding would be a game changer for the Ethereum network as it could potentially solve the scalability trilemma. In an exclusive conversation with Cointelegraph, Uphold’s head of research, Dr. Martin Hiesboeck, explained how sharding could pave the way for Ethereum to become a truly global network. Hiesboeck believes sharding could eventually solve the long-running scalability trilemma of blockchain networks. Scalability trilemma implies that to scale, blockchains usually need to sacrifice one …

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has come out swinging in defense of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), arguing that in some circumstances they can be more efficient and fairer than a traditional corporate structure. In theory DAOs are collectively owned and managed by their members and have no central leadership. All decisions relating to aspects such as the usage of treasury funds or protocol improvements are made via voting on proposals submitted to the community. In the lengthy Sept.20 post on his website, Buterin outlined that critics often argue DAO governance is inefficient, that DAO idealists are naïve, and traditional corporate governance …

Jamie Coutts, Crypto Market Analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence argues that “falsehoods” and “fear of the unknown” is what has been holding back traditional portfolio managers from investing in cryptocurrency. Speaking to Cointelegraph during the Australian Crypto Convention over the weekend, Coutts argues there has been an ongoing “falsehood” that “there is no intrinsic value in blockchains.” “These asset managers own stocks, like Amazon and Facebook [...] which for the first several years these companies had no earnings,” explained Coutts, adding that Facebook in its infant stages “didn’t have profit [...] or seen to have any intrinsic value.” “Yet they could …

The Ethereum blockchain’s carbon footprint is expected to reduce by 99% following last week’s Merge event. By positioning staking as a service for retail and institutional investors, the upgrade could also have a significant impact on the crypto economy, according to a report from Bitwise on Tuesday. The company said it projects potential gains of 4-8% for long-term investors through ETH staking, while J.P. Morgan analysts forecast that staking yields across PoS blockchains could double to $40 billion by 2025. Users who stake crypto assets earn rewards — known as yields — from transaction fees paid by other network users. …

On this week’s “The Market Report” show, Cointelegraph’s resident experts discuss why the crypto market is dumping after the Ethereum merge and why the bears are winning. To kick things off, we broke down the latest news in the markets this week. Biggest Fed rate hike in 40 years? 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week. Bitcoin (BTC) faces another week of “huge” macro announcements after the lowest weekly close since July. The main event for the week will be the Federal Reserve’s decision on key interest rates. How will the market react after the new rate hikes are …

Ethereum's switch to proof-of-stake (PoS) on Sep. 15 failed to extend Ether's (ETH) upside momentum as ETH miners added sell-pressure to the market. On the daily chart, ETH price declined from around $1,650 on Sep. 15 to around $1,350 on Sep. 20, an almost 16% drop. The ETH/USD pair dropped in sync with other top cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), amid worries about higher Federal Reserve rate hikes. Ethereum remains inflationary The Ether price drop on Sep. 15 also coincided with an increase in ETH supply, albeit not immediately post-Merge. $ETH is now Ultra Sound Money pic.twitter.com/fKz6VmoWdR — DavidHoffman.eth (@TrustlessState) September …

The cryptocurrency bear market has had an impact on how people pay with crypto, but Bitcoin (BTC) remains a major payment tool despite huge volatility, according to data from BitPay. The share of Bitcoin payments in the total BitPay transactions has been shrinking amid the ongoing cryptocurrency winter, but it’s still the most popular cryptocurrency for payments on the platform. The sales volumes of Bitcoin-based payments on BitPay accounted for as much as 87% last year and dropped to 52% in the first quarter of 2022 amid the bear market, BitPay’s vice president of marketing Merrick Theobald told Cointelegraph. In …

Quantitative trading company Alameda Research will return an estimate of $200 million to Voyager Digital, which is proceeding through bankruptcy. Alameda borrowed the funds in cryptocurrencies in September 2021. At that time, the sum was close to $380 million. Per a recent filing in the Bankruptcy Court of Southern District of New York, the parties have reached an agreement, and Alameda will return around 6,553 Bitcoin (BTC) and 51,000 Ether (ETH) by Sept. 30. In its corporate Twitter account Alameda confirmed its readiness to return the funds: happy to return the Voyager loan and get our collateral back whenever works …

While Ethereum-based layer-2 solutions have been focused on hyperscaling the network, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes layer 3s will serve a far different purpose — providing “customized functionality.” Buterin shared his thoughts in a Sept. 17 post, providing three “visions” of what layer 3s will be used for in the future. The Ethereum co-founder said a third layer on the blockchain makes sense only if it provides a different function to layer 2s, which have been used mainly to enhance scaling via Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Rollup technology. “A three-layer scaling architecture that consists of stacking the same scaling scheme on top …