Top cryptocurrency news: Tether also confirms its support for the post-Merge Ethereum

10-Aug-2022 By: Anirudh Trivedi

Following an official announcement by USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle Pay, stablecoin behemoth Tether has now officially confirmed its support for Ethereum's planned Merge upgrade and transition to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism-based blockchain.

The announcement came on the same day as its stablecoin competitor vowed to solely support Ethereum's much-anticipated upgrade.

In an Aug. 9 statement, Tether called the Merge "one of the most historic events in blockchain history" and stated that it will operate in accordance with Ethereum's upgrade timeline, which is presently scheduled to take place on Sept. 19.

Tether thinks that in order to minimize community disruption, especially when using our tokens in DeFi projects and platforms, the transition to POS should not be weaponized to cause confusion and harm within the ecosystem.

Tether will actively monitor the event's development and preparations, and will support POS Ethereum in accordance with the approved timeline. Tether stated, "We feel that a smooth transition is critical for the long-term sustainability of the DeFi ecosystem and its platforms, including those that use our tokens."

Despite the fact that the official announcement was just made today, the stablecoin issuer's chief technical officer, Paolo Ardoino, had already said in July that they intended to support the post-Merge ETH2 network.

According to sources, USDT is currently the largest stablecoin in crypto, with a total market valuation of $66.6 billion, while USDC is close behind at $54.1 billion. Both stablecoins have a sizable portion of their circulating supply on Ethereum's current Proof-of-Work blockchain, with USDT accounting for $32.3 billion and USDC accounting for $45.1 billion at the time of writing.

Given the magnitude of these stablecoins and their dominance in the stablecoin market, the show of support, in this case, should result in a smooth transition for the Ethereum, USDT, and USDC ecosystems, as well as the broader crypto market as a whole.

However, as Vitalik Buterin has warned, their influence may cause complications in future Ethereum hard forks, since centralized entities like Tether and Circle may opt to employ their own split chain rather than what the Ethereum community has advocated.

“That is something I believe will become more of an issue in the future.” Basically, he stated that “USDC's judgment on which chain to consider as Ethereum might be a crucial deciding factor in future contentious hard forks.”

This week, Ethereum will conduct its final merge trial through the Goerli testnet, and if all goes as planned, the Sept.19 merge date is unlikely to be postponed.

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