“The Merge” is a term used by Market-TT, which refers to the anticipated merger of Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. This merge will take place at some point between now and 2022. The merge has been in the planning stages for some time, but so far there is no definite date for it to occur.
ETHER PRICE PREDICTION 2022 — A SUPERCYCLE BEFORE “THE MERGE”?
Ethereum (ETH) has gained notoriety since its introduction in 2014 as the currency for developing decentralized applications on top of its blockchain platform. Although Ethereum is still only the second most widely used cryptocurrency, it nonetheless has many advantages over Bitcoin. As a result, it may be worth investing in Ethereum.
The Strategic Merge
Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC) are two separate cryptocurrencies that are based on the same blockchain platform. However, in 2016 there was a hard fork in the ETH blockchain when some members of the community became unhappy with how the best-known cryptocurrency was being run. This resulted in a split creating two separate versions of Ethereum – ETH and ETC. Although they are based on an identical code base, these two cryptocurrencies have since developed differently.
In the months since the fork, ETH has become more popular, with more developers using its platform and tokens rising in value. Ethereum Classic (ETC) is further behind ETH in terms of development and is less popular. Therefore, Market-TT expects that ETH will become more widely used than ETC. As a result, Market-TT classifies ETH as the “winner” and ETC as the “loser” of the 2016 fork.
The Merge
Market-TT has long expected there to be a merger of these two cryptocurrencies at some point between now and 2022. The merge has been in the planning stages for some time, but there is still no definite date set for it to occur.
The reason why it will happen is that Ethereum Classic (ETC) relies on ETH to provide new tokens and to run its contracts. Therefore, the fork will not be sustainable in the long term without access to the ETH blockchain. At some point ETC will have to merge with ETH. The problem is that this merger was made more difficult when some of the developers of ETC tried to steal ETH tokens from one of its contracts after the 2016 fork.
The “winner” of this fork has a higher probability than the loser of being forced to merge with the loser over a long period of time. Therefore, Market-TT believes that ETH will be well established by 2022, and that a merger of ETH and ETC is set to happen between now and 2022.
The Merging Process
Ethereum will be forced to merge with ETC when ETH is reaching the upper limits for blocks in its blockchain. The chain will have to lengthen (with more blocks) to allow more data for certain parts of the Ethereum network. At some point between now and 2022 it will become necessary to allow more data into the ETH blockchain; however, there is currently not enough room in the blockchain for this extra information.
To solve this problem, Ethereum’s blockchain will have to be lengthened. Therefore, the ETH blockchain will have to be allowed to accept blocks created by ETC nodes without a hard fork. Market-TT expects that when this happens, there will be an initial period of about two weeks where ETH and ETC are both used before ultimately there is a forced merge between them.
The forced merge will be advantageous to both cryptocurrencies, as a result of the larger community that will form after the fork. There may also be other benefits. For example, it is possible that ETC developers will learn from ETH and vice-versa to help build both cryptocurrencies even further.
The Merge Timeline
Given this analysis, Market-TT believes that the ETH and ETC networks will have merged by 2023. It also believes that this merger may take place in stages, with a forced merge occurring sometime in 2022. During this time, the two blockchains will be temporarily separate but ultimately there will be a forced merge at some point between now and 2022.
After this merger and the split into two different cryptocurrencies, it is expected that there will be two or three more splits of ETH and ETC. These will occur between now and 2027 as a result of the increasing popularity for the ETH blockchain; resulting in a new version being created. This new version will be forced to merge with the old version at some point between now and 2027.
