The average hash rate of 800TH/s jumps to 900TH/s as days draw nearer to the merge on the Ethereum Network, switching from the Proof of Work (POW) and adopting the Proof of Stake Consensus Mechanism.
Increased Mining Effect On Hash rate
This hash rate surge stems from increased computing power usage by miners to mine all ETH blocks on the POW system to realize profit before the merge.
This rate affects how fast Ethereum is mined against the slated Terminal total difficulty of 5800000000000000000000000 left to be mined to trigger the merge.
Determining Factor For The Merge
The co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, in a tweet addressed the determining factor for the merge; he said, “the Terminal total difficulty level determines the number of hashes left to be mined”, and “with a hash rate of 870TH/s, border.wtf estimated that this merge would occur on September 15th after all the Ethereum blocks are mined.”
However, Vitalik added that this date could likely change as the hash rate determines the time of merge. With the rising hash rate, the merge is likely to happen sooner as more Ethereum blocks are mined with higher computing power.
Reports show that after the merge, Ethereum is set to be a deflationary currency — having a fixed maximum supply cap embedded in the blockchain’s code — and this effect would increase the value of Ethereum using the effect of a scarce commodity to create chaos for demand.
Top Whales Bearish On Post Merge ETH Price
Top whales are selling off their Ethereum holdings to exchanges, increasing the volume of Ethereum supply in these exchanges; Non-Investors have sold off a total of 3 million ETH, and a total of 5 million ETH has been dumped to exchanges.
This dump indicates that most investors doubt the price surge that might happen after the merge due to the price dip taking place days before the merge.
Vitalik Buterin recently addressed rumors about the effect the merge will have on gas prices, transaction speed, and withdrawal of staked ETH; “the merge would not impact the gas fees”, he said in a tweet: this would solely depend on the price of ETH. He further added that this merge would affect scalability as it moves to the Proof of stake consensus mechanism, and this scalability would, in turn, affect gas fees.
Changes to the gas fees, transaction speed, and withdrawal of staked ETH would only happen after the ETH upgrade and not the merge.