The Ethereum price dropped below $1,500 today for the first time in almost a week.
After the overnight merge, the price of ETH initially remained quite stable.
Technically, the Ethereum merging went through without a hitch, but despite the switch to a greener consensus process, some investors may be losing faith in ETH. The Ethereum price dropped below $1,500 today for the first time in almost a week.
ETH/USDT: Source: TradingView
According to CMC, the price of Ethereum (ETH) has decreased by about 8% in the last 24 hours, hitting a low of $1,485. The whole cryptocurrency market is now down roughly 3%, with Bitcoin trading below $20k.
After the overnight merging, the price of ETH initially remained quite stable, moving in small, unpredictable increments around $1,600. Later, however, the price dropped significantly from about $1,585 to its current figure soon after 10 AM ET.
All Eyes on Cardano Vasil Hard Fork
Glassnode, a crypto analytics firm, published a report at the beginning of August highlighting data from derivatives exchanges that suggested the merger was building up to be a “sell the news” event. In July, when the merging was all the rage, Ethereum seemed to be riding a wave of optimism, but Glassnode reports that savvy derivatives traders were already hedging their bets, anticipating a dip in the price of ETH in the wake of the event. Now all eyes are on Cardano Vasil hard fork, scheduled around the 22nd of this month.
The merge is what Ethereum developers call the long-awaited departure from the proof-of-work consensus mechanism, in which users use powerful computers to protect the network and possibly receive crypto rewards.
The Ethereum Foundation estimates that the network will consume over 99% less energy under the new proof-of-stake paradigm, in which validators stake (or keep) tokens in the network to execute transactions.