Ethereum Moves Higher Against Bitcoin on a Wave of Positive News
The price of ethereum (ETH) has outperformed bitcoin (BTC) over the past 24 hours, after news emerged that a final testnet has gone through the steps necessary for transitioning Ethereum to its planned proof-of-stake (PoS) system.
On Wednesday at 10:40 UTC, ETH stood at USD 2,682, up 6% for the past 24 hours. At the same time, BTC traded at USD 40,424, up by almost 5% over the same time period. However, BTC still outperforms ETH in a week and a month, as bitcoin dropped less than the second-largest cryptoasset by market capitalization. In either case, ETH is now up almost 50% in a year, while BTC is down 28%.
ETH price over the past 14 days:
The market moves over the past day followed an announcement from Ethereum developer Tim Beiko on Tuesday saying that Kiln – the final testnet for merging the current version of Ethereum with its new PoS system – had gone through the process necessary to complete “the Merge.”
“The Merge” involves merging Ethereum’s current proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain with the beacon chain proof-of-stake system.
However, Beiko later admitted that not everything had gone exactly as it should during the test, writing on Twitter that “it seems there is a client who isn't producing blocks consistently.”
“The network is stable, with >2/3rd of validators correctly finalizing. We’re looking into the issue,” the developer added.
Four hours later, Marius Van Der Wijden, another Ethereum developer, indicated that he had figured out what the problem was, saying the team is looking into “a couple of small issues.”
Commenting on the Ethereum network from a value standpoint, the on-chain analytics platform Santiment wrote on Wednesday that while the utility of the network has remained steady, prices have fallen by 35%
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