Ether hits seven-week low: Here’s why

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Crypto investors' focus shifted back to the larger selloff in risky assets, causing Ether to fall to a seven-week low and a bonus token given to holders of the digital asset to plunge by more than 50%. The native money of the Ethereum blockchain, ether, fell for a sixth session in a row, falling as high as 6.5% to $1,407. The Merge, a network transfer to a more energy-efficient way of managing transactions, held investors' attention for weeks.

“It's likely due to a worsening macro backdrop that is causing a decline in value of all risk assets in general, traditional equities included. Also, there was a widespread view among traders that the Merge was a sell the news event despite the upgrade's long-term positive impacts," Christine Kim, a research associate at Galaxy Digital, tweeted.

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“The price activity of ETH following the Merge should not be taken as an indication of the upgrade’s relative success or failure. The Merge from a technological perspective was a resounding success," she added.

As of 2:58 PM in New York, Bitcoin was down around 1.5% to $19,548. Compared to Ether's 19% decline, the largest cryptocurrency by market value has fallen by about 9.8% this week.

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The offshoot, known as EthereumPOW, represents a large portion of the blockchain's legacy computing activities that declined to take part in the software upgrade. Ethereum switched its network security protocol from a so-called proof-of-work system to a proof-of-stake one. Since late on September 15, the additional cryptocurrency token that investors acquired following the Merge has fallen up to 60%.

According to