Thursday, September 15 could go down in history as one of the most important dates for the crypto industry. That’s when the long-awaited Ethereum Merge happened, an upgrade that saw the blockchain move from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS) system.
As a result of the merge, GPU mining will become more or less obsolete, meaning that you can expect to see a huge number of used video cards pop up on eBay. This is bad news for the crypto miners, but very good news for the environment. According to Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum Merge could cut down global energy use by 0.2%, calling the Merge “one of the biggest decarbonization events ever.”
Right after the Ethereum Merge was finished on Thursday, a number of NFTs started popping up, celebrating the new eco-friendly identity of the blockchain. Among those is the Merge Apes NFT collection, with more than 10,000 tokens, each selling at a starting price of 0.06 ETG (~$90).
Merge Apes are profile picture NFTs, which were inspired by Buterkin’s tweet in which he commented on another NFT collection – Bored Ape Yacht Club. The father of Ethereum commented “I don’t hate apes, I just want them to fund public goods,” criticizing the fact that his creation is used for “buying yachts and lambos” rather than using Ethereum to accomplish meaningful effects in the real world.
Inspired by Buterkin’s words, the people behind Merge Apes NFS decided to donate 42% of revenue to open-source projects via Gitcoin Grants.
The Ethereum Merge was a great step forward for the entire humanity not only for its ecological benefits but also for the fact that it can lead to the development of fair voting systems, advanced urban planning, and so on. The Merge is made to make the future great, but in short term, it didn’t do much for the ETH value.
In fact, the price of Ether dropped by over 18% right after the merge. Two days after the event, the price of one ETH is $1,425.55. Still, crypto experts claim that the price reduction has nothing to do with the merge. Instead, the price drop came as a response to the latest inflation news (reports released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), which are likely to result in the Fed raising interest rates.
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