Ether (ETH) Tanks 9% As Merge Optimism Fizzles Out

The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) faced severe correction soon after the Merge was successfully live on Thursday, September 15. As of press time, Ethereum (ETH) is trading at $1,460 levels with a market cap of $178 billion.

As many in the crypto space expected, the Ethereum Merge will be a sell-the-news event and it’s turning out to be exactly the same. Martha Reyes, head of research at BeQuant told Bloomberg:

“Now the excitement around the Merge is done, and we don’t have a catalyst for Ethereum in the short term. It would be natural to expect a bit of rotation back” into Bitcoin.

Ether (ETH) has been outperforming during the crypto market bounceback since July 2022. Of course, the optimism surrounding the Merge served to be a key catalyst behind the price rally. However, it seems that global macros are now showing a greater influence on Ethereum and the broader crypto market.

Soon as the U.S. CPI inflation came to be greater than expected at 8.3%, the crypto market entered into a quick correction. The U.S. equity market has also been showing signs of selling pressure ahead of the Fed meeting this month. As per market expectation, the Fed could be announcing a 100 basis points rate hike to contain the soaring inflation.

The Merge Is A Success

Of course, the Merge implementation was a technical success on Thursday, however, it also means greater long-term success for the Ethereum community. The revamp of the Ethereum blockchain will make it more efficient, quicker, and scalable.

But the Merge of Ethereum PoW with the Beacon Chain is just the beginning. There’s a lot to be done ahead to achieve the final goal with Sharding implementation. Preston Van Loon, co-founder Prysmatic Labs and an Ethereum developer, said:

“The Merge event definitely was a success. What we will see over time is, do the metrics hold up? The switch to proof-of-stake has really unlocked the next stages of upgrades.”