The blockchain of Ethereum is moving toward one of the largest upgrades since it was introduced, as its transition from proof-of-work (PoW) consensus to that of proof-of-stake (PoS) is most awaited by the community.
The date of the Merge is planned for the 15th of the next month, following the integration of the testnet named “Goerli” (the conclusive net merger in advance of the complete transition). The native token Ether (ETH) spiked to its heights following the declaration of the date of the Merge in July as its price surpassed a unique six-month high of nearly $2,000 however it did not remain effective for critical resistance consolidation.
ETH Whales Shift to Exchanges Thinking a Potential Drop after Merge
The bullish trend dealing with the price of the token as well as the overall sentiment prevailing within the market appears to be declining while the Merge is coming closer. ETH whales’ considerable proportion has witnessed a severe drop in their asset holdings. Santiment, a crypto analytic platform, has released the data showing the interval between the top-10 biggest non-exchange addresses of Ethereum as well as the exchange addresses is seeing a closure.
During the previous 3 months, substantial sums of ETH tokens have been sent by the prominent whale addresses to the exchanges as a drop of approximately 11% has been witnessed in the non-exchange addresses whereas an elevation of up to 78% has taken place in the case of the exchange-based addresses.
The crypto flow on the exchange addresses denotes a bearish sentiment and this is usually done on the behalf of the traders to capitalize on their tokens’ selling. The upsurge in the number of ETH sent by the whale addresses to the exchanges signifies that the respective whales are expecting that the token’s price will see a decline in the coming times. The market of the asset advanced after the announcement of confirmation of the Merge’s date.
3 Phases of Ethereum’s PoS Transition
Nonetheless, it could consequently witness a price drop after the respective prominent event. The Merge would identify the accomplishment of the 2nd of the 3 stages in the transition of Ethereum to the proof-of-stake consensus. The procedure of PoS conversion commenced in 2020’s December with Beacon Chain’s introduction.
The present stage was planned to be accomplished by the last year’s mid, but, because of much procrastination, it is to be finalized in this year’s 3rd quarter. The third stage comprises the most critical features such as additional scalability via sharding as well as minimizing the energy consumption by the blockchain to a significant level.
