Investors Choose Ethereum Over Bitcoin With The Merge Event Just Around The Corner

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Recently, Ethereum 2.0 client Teku released a necessary update v22.8.1 for all the Mainnet users to prepare them for the upcoming Merge. The update consists of the Bellatrix Upgrade and Merge transition configuration. The Bellatrix activation will be done on September 6 on Mainnet. All the Ethereum Mainnet users have been asked to upgrade to the newer version before the activation.

With the release of the upgrade, traders are inclining toward buying more and more Ethereum. Crypto exchange Binance has noted that Ethereum is the most popular cryptocurrency at the moment and investors are preferring to buy it over Bitcoin.

Ethereum purchasing on Binance is breaking yearly records, as per figures from Crypto Compare. ETH pairs are also receiving considerable traction on Binance. The open interest for BTC/USDT and ETH/USDT is now at 56.4% on Binance. Notably, the accumulation of ETH touched its highest this year- $2.26 billion.

“The aggregated open interest for the ETH/USDT pair reached a yearly high of $2.26bn,” read the tweet by CryptoCompare.

What can Binance users expect of the ETH Merge?

After the announcement of the upcoming upgradation of ETH to ETH 2.0, the popularity of the platform shot up. However, the ETH price has been falling considerably over the past few days despite the high expectations from the Merge. ETH fell below $1,600 from trading around $1,900 on Friday. Earlier today, the ETH price stood at $1,574 which was down by 2.6% in the last 24 hours. The cryptocurrency has dropped by as much as 18.7% in a week.

All along, the developers of the platform have been preparing for the final mainnet on the ETH network which is to be released around September 15. Developers suggested that mainnet users must upgrade to v22.8.1 before the Bellatrix is activated. The upgrade basically includes necessary configurations for the Merge. 

Why Has The Merge Date Been Revised?

Initially, Ethereum Developer Vitalik Buterin had said that the exact date of the Merge will depend on the hash rate. He explained that the Ethereum Mainnet is ready to merge with the Beacon chain to transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. Previously, the developers had predicted the tentative Merge date to be around September 19. However, recently the Merge date has been revised to a few days earlier based on the hash rate expectation. 

Following the final test stage of Merge called Goerli, Buterin said that the proof-of-work version of Ethereum now only has a fixed number of mining slots. This meant that the developers could be more certain about when the official network upgrade might begin. The anticipated date of Merge is September 15 as of now.

New ETH Upgrade for Belatrix and Merge transition

On August 22, Ethereum 2.0 client Teku announced the release of v22.8.1, a required update to prepare for the Bellatrix upgrade and merge. 

In order to transition to proof-of-stake (PoS), all Mainnet nodes are required to upgrade to the required Teku version. In case clients fail to upgrade execution, they will report a “Merge transition configuration error” with Teku.

The upgrade includes several additions and improvements such as bug fixes related to terminal PoW block, debugs calculated payload, and repeated timeout exceptions.