as EthereumWith the biggest upgrade expected within about a week since the network’s 2015 inception, the price of the industry’s second largest cryptocurrency has been on quite a rollercoaster recently.
Last month, the cryptocurrency crossed the psychological $2,000 level, but the momentum did not last long as the asset fell back within the $1,500-$1,700 range.
Ethereum, currently trading at around $1,610, is up 6% in the past 24 hours to recover from a sudden – and what seemed rather speculative – fall a day earlier, when it fell near $1,500. .
Another interesting development, however, is Ethereum’s historical competition. Bitcoin (BTC) – The oldest and largest cryptocurrency in the market by market capitalization.
While the so-called “flipping” – a phenomenon in which the market cap of Ethereum eclipses that of Bitcoin – has not yet occurred, the price of ETH against BTC has been trending quite well since mid-June.
As data from CoinMarketCap shows, the ETH:BTC ratio peaked at 0.08514 bitcoins per 1 Ethereum late Wednesday, the pair’s highest level this year.
It is also the best performance for Ethereum versus Bitcoin since December last year, when the market—fresh from its all-time highs—had a downward spiral that eventually took the price of Bitcoin below $20,000.
Ethereum Puts Pressure on Market Leaders
Is this bullish trend already worth the merge – imminent transition of Ethereum proof-of-work (PoW) for the less energy-hungry proof-of-stake (PoW) system- is anyone’s guess. Still, it will certainly be interesting to see how events develop over the next few weeks and months.
Still, as Dan Held, head of growth marketing at Kraken, recently pointed out decryptThe upcoming merger of Ethereum is likely to put more pressure on Bitcoin, which, in turn, could translate into future price movements as well.
In particular, as held, this may be relevant when the bitcoin versus ethereum narrative comes to the attention of a growing army of environmentalists concerned with bitcoin’s energy consumption.
“I think it will add pressure to the energy consumption of bitcoin, because they will point to ethereum and say, ‘Hey, this blockchain’ – I am talking from a layman’s point of view here – ‘this blockchain is too much energy. Not using. Absolutely, and you’re using a lot.’ And that’s it. They’re not going to understand proof of stake versus proof of work, or anything else.”
Bitcoin is up 2% over the previous day, trading at $19,182 at press time.