Prediction time is coming!

Introduction

After years of anticipation, The Merge has arrived. Early 15th September morning, Ethereum’s landmark transition to proof of stake went off without a hitch. With tens of billions of dollars of digital assets on the line and zero margin for error, the Ethereum merge consumed the focus and energy of the network’s elite cadre of core developers for almost half a decade which proponents say could boost crypto prices in the long run and significantly change the future of cryptocurrency. The Merge is an upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain, which powers innovations in the crypto ecosystem like non-fungible tokens (NFTs). There's been a boom in crypto investing in recent years, with the value of the overall market more than doubling at one point last year as people piled their money into bitcoin, ether, dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies. Whether you are super into crypto and following every latest development in the space or you own a bit of crypto via a platform like Coinbase or Venmo, if you've heard about the so-called Merge you may be wondering what it actually means for you.

The upgrade transitioned Ethereum from Proof of Work (PoW) to the Proof of Stake (PoS) model, which is a more energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly system. It entails nodes being selected via an algorithm that has a preference for nodes that hold more of a network's currency. In other words, their "stake" in the network is rewarded over the computer power that's rewarded in the proof-of-work system. Proponents say that the transition allows the Ethereum network to reduce its energy consumption by around 99%.

Within the next month, the network’s core developers will have to collectively determine which features they plan to include in Ethereum’s next upgrade, Shanghai. Opinions within the group are torn. And once again, the decision will have multi-billion dollar implications.

"This is the first step in Ethereum's big journey towards being a very mature system, but there are still steps left to go," said Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum's co-creator, as he reflected on the Merge live stream. He went on to mention Ethereum's relatively high fees and slow speeds, which were not addressed by the update, but remain as much a barrier to growing the network's user base as environmental concerns ever were. Buterin, Ethereum's most visible figurehead, previously outlined a set of next steps for the network that includes “sharding” – a method that should help address the network’s sluggish transaction times and high fees by spreading transactions across “shards,” like adding lanes to a highway.

Source

Methodology

• Fundamental analysis or technical analysis should be used for finding what’s next.

  ==In this analysis we will first focus on ETH Merge to see any trend after that we will analyze the following data:==

  • ETH price
  • HOP bridge from ETH
  • Transactions
  • Swaps
  • ETH swaps activity
  • NFT sales

Results

==1. ETH price==

• First, we do an analysis on the price of Ethereum until the end of the year.

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• According to the first chart of Ethereum price, we can see that the price of Ethereum has decreased after Merge compared to before.

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• Therefore, when we want to compare the volume before and after merge to arrive at a trend to predict, one of the influential factors will be the price of Ethereum.

• At the end of the last working week, Trim was traded around the price of $1296. It seems; After a long price and time correction, this digital currency has a reliable price support around $983 to $860. In terms of time, the end of 2022 is an important time frame for changing the phase and returning to the upward trend of this currency.

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• After dealing with the desired support area; The mid-term price and time correction of this digital currency has been completed and this currency has an upward trend.

==6. NFT sales==

==2. HOP protocol bridge from ETH==

==4. ETH Swaps==

• It can be seen that after Marj, the number of NFT sales has increased. It is about 5.6%.
• Since September 15, this process of increasing sales has almost started and after September 22 it has been almost constant until now.
• “Daily USD amount/Sales count“'s chart shows that it is a downward trend after Marj, and one of the reasons for this is the decrease in the price of Ethereum after merge.

• The number of bridges that have occurred from the HOP protocol has increased since Merge.

• But the bridged amount has decreased since merge.

  This decrease in value can be related to the price of Ethereum in this period of time.

• Most Ethereum and other bridged currencies are at their maximum volume on September 14th.

• On September 14th, about 8.9 million ethereum was bridged and 4.5 million usdc moved.

• And after September 15, in the daily volume chart, we can see that the volume of all currencies has a downward trend.

• But on September 23, we had the highest number of daily bridges

==5. Transactions==

Conclusion

• The number of bridges that have occurred from the HOP protocol has increased since Merge. Number of unique users bridge ETH on September 22 is in the highest Number.
• For Next steps by increasing the number of users It should be hoped that the number of bridges will increase.
• The number of sales of NFTs increased by 5.6% after Merge. And almost after September 18, the number of NFT sales has become constant.
• Also, the number of buyers and sellers has increased.
• Also, the number of users who had transactions and swaps has also increased.
• All the cases that were reviewed have a significant role in improving performance, and in most of them, the increase of users after Merge is visible. With these interpretations, with the increase in users and Ethereum reaching the price support level and increasing the price again, the performance was seen to improve at every level. Now, the improvement of each of the reviewed items can be the next project to complete Merge by the end of 2022.

• On ==September 16==, we have the highest volume imported. But in general, we don't see any special trend before and after Merge.

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• Also, we do not see any particular trend in the “swaps in and swaps out” table, except that ==swaps in== are more on most days.

• Finally, in the last chart we can clearly see that there is no correlation between the price of Ethereum and the net DEX swaps.

==3. Swaps==

• We can clearly see in the daily swap number chart that the trend is increasing.
• Also, the number of daily unique swappers in the pie chart shows the increase of swappers.

• On September 15 after merge there was a peak in “Daily unique users“ chart . However, then On September 18 went back down to the values before the merge. It remains quite stable.
• Also we can say that for “Daily transaction chart“ too.
• On September 14th and 15th, respectively, we have the highest amount of Ethereum transferred.
• But the final amount of transferred ethereums is almost constant before and after merge.