Bitcoin continued to lose ground this week, falling below the $22,000 mark on Friday after dropping more than 7% in a single day. Ether was impacted as well, and on Saturday, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market size dropped under $1,700.
While prices once again dropped, the cryptocurrency industry is gaining steam as more players—traders, developers, entrepreneurs, regulators, and yes, even hackers—seek to make their mark.
You may have noticed a lot of rhymes recently in the crypto industry; a few examples are merged, surge, verge, purge, and splurge. The cause? The day when Ethereum fully switches from the energy-intensive “proof-of-work” technique of expanding the blockchain to the far less demanding “proof-of-stake” consensus mechanism is highly anticipated by the cryptocurrency community. The occurrence is known as the “merge.”
Currently, Ethereum features a “Beacon Chain” that employs proof-of-stake. The objective at this time is to safely move Ethereum’s activity to this chain. Although official sources claimed that the deadline is September 19, it’s crucial to keep in mind that Merge “deadlines” are more akin to projections than commitments.
However, this hasn’t prevented cryptocurrency investors from betting on a potential increase in Ether’s price as users and those developing projects on Ethereum anticipate a potentially more streamlined, affordable, and environmentally friendly experience following the Merge.
According to Nirmal Ranga, CFO of Indian cryptocurrency exchange ZebPay, “that is the most crucial development that we are looking up to, which would essentially put Ethereum into a favorable position very soon.”
According to its official website, Ethereum has lofty goals to scale and become more effective until it can “assist all of mankind,” therefore The Merge is merely designed to be the start of that process.
Regaining Trust After Terra
In the cryptocurrency industry, stablecoins are a mystery. The pricing of these tokens, which are ‘pegged’ to the worth of assets like dollars, pounds, precious metals, and more, has attracted users from all over the world who have converted their money to them. However, the industry was terrified by the TerraUSD [UST] stablecoin’s collapse in May 2022, which resulted in losses in the billions of millions. The remaining stablecoins are under pressure to regain the confidence of investors.
Tether Holdings Limited said on Thursday that it will be collaborating with the accounting firm BDO Italia for quarterly attestations. Tether [USDT] is the largest stablecoin by market valuation. The issue of whether Tether actually backed each USDT with 1 USD has been the subject of intense legal examination, and the company was even fined $41 million by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Naturally, a thorough audit is what the majority of Tether observers desire. The corporation acknowledged that an audit was coming, though it hasn’t specified a timeframe for when it will take place.
The choice to collaborate with the BDO organization is indicative of its pledge to provide significant transparency for holders of Tether tokens, giving daily updates on issued tokens and reserves in addition to monthly assurance opinions. The next stage in the company’s journey toward a full audit, this new connection is in line with Tether’s commitment to openness, according to the official statement.
