Why “The Merge” Is Not Priced In, Says Ethereum Inventor Vitalik Buterin

Ethereum and the crypto market slightly recovered some gains after the Federal Reserve (Fed) announced a 75-basis point (bps) interest rate hike. There was no surprise from the financial institutions, and the second crypto by market cap might be able to extend the bullish trend without external distractions.

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At the time of writing, Ethereum (ETH) trades at $1,640 with an 11% profit in the last 24 hours and a 7% profit over the past week. The cryptocurrency has reclaimed its position as the best-performing asset in the top 10 by market cap.

In an interview with Bankless, the inventor of Ethereum spoke about what could be the most bullish milestone for this blockchain since its inception: “The Merge”. The event that will complete ETH’s migration into a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain with the promise of bringing more scalability and better performance to the network.

For months, there has been an ongoing debate about the impact of this event on the price of Ethereum. Some market participants believe “The Merge” is already priced-in, meaning its impact is currently reflected on ETH’s price, others believe the opposite.

Buterin himself is amongst the former, he believes “The Merge” is not priced-in from a market and psychological standpoint. The positive impact of this event will have implications with the potential to ripple across the entire Ethereum ecosystem.

These effects will kick in when “The Merge” has been deployed on the mainnet. Buterin said:

The Merge is looking more and more in the review mirror. It’s looking more and more like “hey, this things is going to actually happen and when it happens I expect (developer’s) morale is going to go way up (…). I basically expect that “The Merge” is not going to be priced-in, by which I mean not just in market terms, but in psychological, and narrative terms (…).

What “The Merge” Could Spell For The Price Of Ethereum

Once “The Merge” has been implemented, Buterin predicts that Ethereum will change a “lot of minds”. This could potentially hint at the surge in the adoption of this network’s ecosystem.

There has been a lot of talk about cryptocurrencies and their alleged negative impact on the environment. “The Merge” is set to reduce Ethereum’s carbon emissions by 99%.

This could translate into more institutions and capital previously sidelined from the crypto space because of its environmental footprint thus, why this event might have profound implications in terms of adoption, price appreciation, and development.

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On the latter, Buterin celebrated Ethereum’s capacity to improve its development speed across the years. After “The Merge”, ETH core developers will focus on scalability and building the infrastructure needed for mainstream adoption.