Ethereum pioneered the general-purpose smart contracting layer on top of its blockchain, so it’s no surprise that the Ethereum Virtual Machine, or EVM, for short, has attracted and retained a huge portion of Web3 developers.
Ethereum's Merge resulted in a Proof-of-Work airdrop. That means you could be on the hook for tokens you didn't even want.Ethereum’s Merge dominated the crypto world in September with promises of quicker transaction times, improved security and a 99% reduction in energy consumption. However, will you end up with a surprise tax bill too? Let’s examine.
The Ethereum network has seen its biggest one-day growth so far in 2022, with the total number of wallet addresses on the network hitting a fresh all-time high over the weekend. The growth indicates that the real-world utility of the network is rising.Per data from the crypto analytics firm Santiment, a surge in new addresses created on Ethereum was seen on Saturday, when as many as 135,780 brand new wallet addresses popped up on the network.
It is worth noting that following the Merge, the blockchain transitioned from its energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism to a PoS framework. As a result, miners that used to process transactions and produce blocks were replaced by ecosystem participants who can now stake their Ether holdings to become network validators.As a result, Ethereum-centric graphics processing unit (GPU) mining has been entirely eliminated from the picture.The prices of many popular GPUs, such as Nvidia’s RTX3080, have dropped by nearly 60% over the last 90 days across some parts of the globe.
After much buildup and preparation, the Ethereum Merge went smoothly this month. The next test will come during tax season. Cryptocurrency forks, such as Bitcoin Cash, have created headaches for investors and accountants alike in the past. While there has been progress, the United States Internal Revenue Service rules still weren’t ready for something like the Ethereum network upgrade. Nonetheless, there seems to be an interpretation of IRS rules that tax professionals and taxpayers can adopt to achieve simplicity and avoid unexpected tax bills.
The historic upgrade casts aside the miners who had previously driven the blockchain, with promises of massive environmental benefits.The massive overhaul of Ethereum known as the Merge has finally happened, moving the digital machinery at the core of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value to a vastly more energy-efficient system after years of development and delay.
The Merge was the first step toward a series of upgrades on Ethereum to solve the scalability trilemma. After some point, the theory suggests that a blockchain has to compromise on one of its three key aspects -- scalability, decentralization and security. And that a blockchain cannot have all three at the same time.
Raj Gokal, Solana Labs’ chief operating officer, joined CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover” to discuss what the Merge could mean for Ethereum and how his company’s mobile phone will stack up against the iPhone 14.
‘The flippening’ is something that continues to generate plenty of debate in crypto circles. In fact, now that Ethereum (ETH) is close to its long-awaited shift to proof-of-stake, it has begun attracting more attention than ever before, particularly amid claims that ETH will become a deflationary asset following this shift. This is certainly a contentious issue, particularly when ‘the flippening’ can mean more than one thing. Yet there’s general agreement that ETH will flippen bitcoin (BTC) on at least some metrics, even if there’s plenty of disagreement as to whether it will become more valuable in terms of market capitalization.
We love the idea of a system that works without any central authority or a single point of failure. But as it turns out, most crypto apps and wallets you know and use rely on centralized providers for their backend stack.