The largest altcoin Ethereum (ETH) is currently trading at its year high against Bitcoin (BTC), with the Merge just around the corner.
Historical battle
With Ethereum’s biggest upgrade expected within a week, the second-largest cryptocurrency is currently on a roller coaster ride.
Last month, the cryptocurrency briefly surpassed the USD 2,000 psychological level, but the momentum did not last long. The value of the coin fell back to the $1,500 and $1,700 ranges.
Ethereum, which is currently trading at around $1,610, is up 6% in the past 24 hours. With that, it has bounced back somewhat from the rather speculative dip the day before, when it fell to near $1,500.
A more interesting development is the historic battle between Ethereum and Bitcoin (BTC), the market’s oldest and largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
While the so-called “flipping,” an event where Ethereum’s market cap eclipses that of Bitcoin, may not have happened yet, the price of ETH against BTC has risen quite a bit since mid-June.
The ETH:BTC ratio reached 0.08514 Bitcoin per 1 Ethereum. This is the highest level the couple has seen this year. It is also the best performance for Ethereum against Bitcoin since December last year. At the time, the market was on the brink of a downward spiral, which eventually took the price of Bitcoin below $20,000.
Ethereum puts Bitcoin under pressure
Whether this bullish trend has already been priced in with the Merge, Ethereum’s imminent transition from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a less energy-consuming Proof-of-Stake (PoS) system, is not clear. Still, it will certainly be interesting to see how events develop over the coming weeks and months.
Still, as Dan Held, the head of growth marketing at Kraken, recently told us, the upcoming Ethereum merger is likely to put more pressure on Bitcoin. This, in turn, can translate into future price movements.
As Held noted, this may be relevant when the Bitcoin vs Ethereum story comes to the attention of the growing army of environmentalists concerned with Bitcoin’s energy consumption.
I think the Merge will pressure Bitcoin’s power consumption because they will point to Ethereum and say, ‘Hey, this blockchain, I’m speaking here from a layman’s perspective, this blockchain uses little energy, and you use a lot of energy. ‘. And that’s it. They won’t understand proof-of-stake versus proof-of-work or anything else.’
According to Hero.