7th September 2022 > > The Merge.

tl;dr

Privacy protocols are coming to the Trezor.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

The crypto market is not in great shape, buffeted by the build-up of problems unleashed by a decade of incontinent government spending, supported, and encouraged by the wholesale manipulation of risk markets by Central Banks through quantitative easing.

The only number that really matters is just how high 10-year treasury yields can go. Every basis point causes the world pain.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Brief update on The Merge

A key step towards implementing The Merge (come on now, I don’t think I need to explain what that term means anymore) was activated yesterday – the Bellatrix upgrade.

This upgrade prepares the Beacon Chain to accept the Mainnet Execution layer.

The Beacon Chain is the Proof-of-Stake ETH chain that has been running now for over a year or so, without committing any transactions to the ETH blockchain. It is also known as the Consensus layer. Once the Beacon Chain starts accepting and committing transactions from the Execution Layer, the move away from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to PoS will be complete.

As crypto God Vitalik explained:

“The merge is still expected to happen around Sep 13-15. What's happening today is the Bellatrix hard fork, which *prepares* the chain for the merge.”

I am convinced he has a more technical explanation for his loyal coterie of computer and blockchain technology nerds, of which unfortunately I cannot claim to be a qualified member.

…

Once that excitement is all out of the way, we have The Surge, The Verge, The Purge, and The Splurge to look forward to (see CCC 22nd July 2022).

Gosh, I just cannot wait.