The price of Ethereum is trading sideways with less than 24 hours remaining until the scheduled merger event. The Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency market cap, is barely making any noise with less than 24 hours left before merge takes place.
CoinMarketCap data shows that ETH has fallen 0.27% over the past day and is trading at just $1,600 as of press time.
The asset reached a daily high point of $1,626 but then dropped to $1,564 in early Wednesday morning. This was due to a drop in trading volume from \$23 billion down to \$20 billion over the previous 24 hours.
Ethereum is still at 4% on the seven-day chart as it prepares to transition from its current proof-of-work (PoW), consensus mechanism, to the more energy-hungry proof-of-stake system (PoS).
What will The Merge Change?
Henry Elder, Head DeFi at Wave Financial, stated that there are misconceptions about the Merge. It won’t make Ethereum more efficient, scalable, or cheaper. It’s Ethereum that moves from proof-of work to proof-of stake.
Elder says that the greatest benefit of the Merge is the “probably, the 99.96% reduction in electricity use, but for 99.96% users there will be no change in their experience.”
It could indicate investors’ caution in the lead-up to the merger by the subdued trading activity prior to it. This could also reflect a larger crypto market decline following the U.S. The Tuesday release of the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI), which showed higher-than-expected inflation numbers, reflected a wider crypto market drop.
Most trading platforms will temporarily suspend withdrawals and deposits to the Ethereum mainnet during the merger. The largest cryptocurrency exchange in America, Coinbase will also temporarily suspend activity on the Polygon(MATIC) and Optism chains as well as the ERC-20 tokens.
