As we get nearer and nearer to one of many greatest occasions within the temporary historical past of cryptocurrency – the Ethereum Merge – there are a variety of metrics that are suggesting exercise is choosing up throughout the area.
Ethereum Identify Service
The primary is the Ethereum Identify Service (ENS), which noticed its third highest month of income in August. Producing $4.3 million in income, the service noticed 34,000 accounts register names for the primary time.
August 2022 stats for ENS
– 301K new .eth registrations (complete 2.17m names)– $4.7m in protocol income (all goes to the @ENS_DAO)– 2,744 ETH in income (third highest month)– 34K new eth accounts w/ no less than 1 ENS title (complete 540k)– >99% of OpenSea area vol pic.twitter.com/utU8i4cBMT
— ens.eth (@ensdomains) September 1, 2022
These names are a neat function of Ethereum. As a substitute of offering any individual a protracted Ethereum tackle, as an alternative a easy title ending in .eth may be offered, similar to harrypotter.eth, for instance. This title may be linked to at least one’s pockets, which means it’s all that must be given when asking for a cost. Easy and intuitive.
The increase in these names being registered exhibits that persons are positioning themselves for the Merge, slated to go stay on September fifteenth.
13 million ETH staked
The quantity of ETH locked up within the staking contract is now as much as 13 million ETH, which is about 11% of the full provide. On the present market worth of $1,635, that interprets to over $21 billion of Ethereum locked up within the staking contract.
What’s vital to notice right here is that the Merge won’t allow withdrawals of this ETH. I had beforehand speculated about whether or not a flooding of ETH into the market post-Merge may place downward strain on the worth – in any case, a lot of the Ethereum has been locked up for fairly some time, because the above graph exhibits.
Nonetheless, buyers won’t be able to withdraw their ETH till one other improve is applied, which isn’t deliberate for six months to a 12 months down the road. This could boring the priority across the provide/demand degree because the Merge goes stay. There are additionally liquid staking alternate options which imply the liquidity has not been completely inexistent so far.
Macro
And so we shut in on the watershed second, solely two weeks away as I write this. The large query stays, will this be a “purchase the hearsay, promote the information” sort occasion, or will Ethereum pump off the again of it.
My ideas for the second are easy – I believe for the short-term worth motion, the macro local weather is at the moment much more vital, with spiralling inflation. A hawkish Fed and tense geopolitical local weather nonetheless driving markets throughout the board.
