Cryptoverse: Ethereum holds breath for blockchain network upgrade 'merge'

business-standard.com:

Investors in ether and its troubled twin stETH are nervously anticipating a crypto milestone: The merge.

That's the name for a major upgrade of the Ethereum blockchain network upon which many crypto projects are built, aimed at making it leaner, meaner and cleaner.

It's elusive. The merge was supposed to happen years ago but has been delayed several times, with developers most recently axing plans to push the button in June, unnerving investors who began to fear it might never see the light of day.

Now though, market players are betting that the end of the waiting is nigh. But it's no slam dunk.

On Polymarket, a crypto site where users place bets with stablecoins on the occurrence of future events, investors have priced in a 67% chance that the upgrade, also known as Ethereum 2.0, will come to pass by October, and a 13% probability by September.

The Ethereum Foundation, which uses the analogy of changing the engine of a spaceship mid-flight, says on its website that the merge is "shipping" around "Q3/Q4 2022".

The merge finally happening would prove a big relief for ether, which has slumped on past delays and waning confidence in the upgrade. The second-biggest cryptocurrency was last trading at around $1,200, down from just over $3,500 in April, though much of the recent pessimism about the upgrade has been swamped by wider recent market ructions.

The merge could also represent the end of an ordeal for those investors holding a crypto derivative token called staked ether or stETH, which represents ether locked up in a testing environment for the upgrade, and which is hard to redeem at scale until at least six months after the merge happens.

Yet doubters remain.

"It's just the sheer mass of the protocol. Ethereum is