While Ethereum devs promised no downtime during The Merge, one of the most anticipated Ethereum upgrades, members of the crypto community decided to take proactive measures to ensure the safety of investor funds. In this effort, crypto exchange FTX announced to halt all Ether (ETH) trades on various blockchains until the September upgrade concludes. The Merge upgrade will permanently transition the Ethereum blockchain from proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism — aimed at reducing energy consumption and introducing sharding capabilities. According to Ethereum developers, the Merge is designed to transition to PoS with zero downtime owing to the …

At the end of August, a digital platform called ECOS Free Economic Zone delivered good news from a country that rarely sparks on the global crypto map — Armenia. ECOS reported adding 60 megawatts (MW) of capacity to its power plant-based facility, operating since 2018. Situated at one of the hydroelectric plants on the Hrazdan river, the mining facility gets its electricity supply directly from the high-voltage grid and uses the site’s infrastructure to power containers. The platform’s representatives noted that ECOS could expand to an additional 200MW of clean electricity. For comparison, the Berlin Geothermal plant in El Salvador …

As the date for the Ethereum Merge approaches, nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea has announced that it will focus on supporting only the NFTs that are on the upgraded proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain. In an announcement on Twitter, the NFT marketplace said that while their team is not speculating on any potential forks, it clarified that if there are forked NFTs, they will not reflect on OpenSea as the platform will only support the upgraded chain. The NFT marketplace also highlighted that its team is preparing the NFT trading platform for any issues that may arise with the upcoming Ethereum Merge …

Ethereum (ETH) hodlers that don’t play their cards right following the Ethereum Merge may be in for a hefty bill come tax time, according to tax experts. Around Sept.15, the Ethereum blockchain is set to transition from its current proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism to proof-of-stake (PoS), aimed at improving the network’s impact on the environment. There is a chance that The Merge will result in a contentious hard fork, which will cause ETH holders to receive duplicate units of hard-forked Ethereum tokens, similar to what happened when the Ethereum and Ethereum Classic hard fork occurred in 2016. Tax compliance firm …

The Ethereum network will be able to withstand censorship risks both in the short and long term, according to Ethereum community member and investor, Ryan Berckmans. The ban of Ethereum-based privacy tool tornado Cash by U.S. authorities earlier this month left many wondering whether Ethereum transactions could be also at risk of censorship, especially after Ethereum’s imminent transition to a proof-of-stake system. A widely spread concern is that entities controlling a large chunk of staked Eth, such as Coinbase or Kraken, would start censoring transactions in order to comply with U.S. sanctions. That is an unlikely scenario according to Berckmans, …

The Ethereum Merge is slated for Sept. 15, which will see the Ethereum blockchain move from its current proof-of-work (PoW) mining consensus to proof-of-stake (PoS). The Merge is being touted as one of the biggest upgrades for the Ethereum blockchain as it would help the network move to a more energy-efficient way of verifying transactions and eliminate PoW mining completely. With the Merge date approaching, Ether (ETH) miner's balance has touched a new four-year high. According to Oklink data, the balance of Ethereum miner addresses exceeded 260,000 ETH with a total of 261,848 ETH valued at over $415 million at …

Ahead of the rapidly approaching Ethereum (ETH) Merge on Sept. 15, Ethermine, the world’s largest Ethereum mining pool has unveiled a new staking pool for users. Notably however, it is not available to U.S. miners The new service offers Ethermine members a chance to collectively stake their ETH and earn interest on top of their deposits. As little as 0.1 ETH ($159) required to enter. However the smaller the holding, the greater the fee. The platform is currently offering stakers an annual ETH interest rate of 4.43%. At the time of writing, 393 Ether worth roughly $626,000 at current prices …

The cryptocurrency market overall endured a bad summer on back-to-back pieces of bad news, ranging from Terra's collapse to the Celsius Network's liquidity crisis. But some tokens have bucked the downtrend and have actually seen their valuations go up over the summer. Specifically, the last 90 days have seen these so-called alternative cryptocurrencies, or "altcoins," outperforming top coins like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). Here are three among them Chiliz (CHZ) Chiliz's (CHZ) return in the last 90 days comes to be above 80%, the highest among the top-cap cryptocurrencies. Moreover, CHZ is down only 26% year-to-date compared with BTC …

Within a matter of weeks, the Ethereum blockchain is going to undergo the Merge, in one of the biggest and riskiest upgrades in the industry's history: a switch from a Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm to Proof-of-Stake. XGo's head of product Josh Cowell explains what the much-anticipated Ethereum Merge is all about — and some of the big questions that currently remain unanswered. 1. Hello! Before we delve into all things Ethereum, tell us about XGo. Hello! We're a bunch of crypto enthusiasts and founded XGo to restore crypto's original goals and principles beyond making money (or losing it!) fast. We have …

Out in the cryptosphere, there's a vast amount of wealth that's seemingly out of reach. A long-running statistic suggests four million Bitcoin — almost 20% of the total supply — has been lost forever. Much of it was mined when the network was just beginning, with early adopters tearing their hair out after losing their private keys. One Welshman has endured a nine-year battle as he attempts to receive a hard drive containing 7,500 BTC from landfill. But this isn't the only treasure trove that's worth exploring. For example, did you know that over 500 Ethereum presale wallets are yet …

Ethereum is a few weeks away from officially moving to a proof-of-stake (PoS) mining consensus from its current proof-of-work (PoW) one. The transition officially dubbed the Merge is slated for Sept. 15, but in the run-up to the major upgrade, Ethereum node centralization has become a hot topic. As Cointelegraph reported last week, the majority of 4,653 active Ethereum nodes are being run through centralized web providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), which experts believe could expose the Ethereum blockchain to the central point of failure post Merge. The same concern was put forward by Maggie Love, co-founder of Web3 …

As we approach the date of Ethereum’s Merge, users have speculated about what it will mean for projects and the wider ecosystem. Some argue the Merge will have little impact on gas fees and believe transaction speeds might improve. However, in general, most ordinary users will not notice much change. The real changes for average users will only be seen after the sharding mechanism is introduced six months later. The Merge will reduce energy consumption and increase security The Merge is a planned update to the Ethereum network scheduled for Sept. 15. It will move transaction validation from proof-of-work (PoW) …