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EthereumPoW has released further updates for miners, exchanges, and other network participants on EthereumPoW (ETHW), the miner-led fork of Ethereum that will happen once The Merge occurs.

The Merge refers to Ethereum’s transition from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake blockchain network. This transition eliminates the need for miners, as validators with ether staked on the network will be responsible for processing transactions. Some Ethereum miners are against this transition, hence the creation of a forked chain that still retains the proof-of-work status quo.

According to today’s announcement, ETHW Core, the team developing the mainnet for the fork chain must deploy the network within 24 hours of The Merge. The ETHW Core team will maintain a copy of the Ethereum blockchain until the exact moment when Ethereum transitions to proof of stake.

ETHW Core has prepared a download link for miners, node operators, exchanges, bridges, wallets, and other interested network participants. They are able to download a snapshot of the chain. The size of the snapshot is about 1.1 terabytes, per the announcement.

Today’s announcement also stated that more mining pools have begun testing their hardware on the ETHPoW testnet. This is in addition to the fact that the major players like Poolin and f2pool have already stated plans to mine ETHW. The Core team has also partnered with Ethwmine as a backup mining pool for the forked chain.

The Core team says all the necessary tasks required to launch the ETHPoW mainnet will take some time. As such, it has urged network participants to exercise some patience.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) legislation is likely to adopted globally as the standard for regulatory oversight, Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao said. 

“The EU MiCA regulation will become a global regulatory standard copied around the world,” Zhao, who is invariably known by his initials CZ, said at a panel kicking off Binance Blockchain Week in Paris on Wednesday. 

He highlighted that the regulation benefits crypto entrepreneurs and businesses. “Instead of applying for 27 licences, you just have to apply for one, you will be passportable.”

MiCA regulates cryptocurrencies and service providers across the EU’s 27 member states. European institutions reached an agreement on MiCA in June and it has since generally been welcomed by the crypto industry as means to improve credibility and streamline an otherwise fragmented regulatory landscape.

CZ also expressed some concerns over MiCA, however: particularly its limitations on stablecoins. The current MiCA report restricts the issuance of US dollar-pegged stablecoins, which could lead to their eventual ban from the EU bloc.

Blockchain for Europe and the Digital Euro Association, two lobby groups, share CZ’s concerns and wrote a letter to the EU Council in August to try to undo the restriction as logistical details are ironed out in the European institutions.

“The three largest stablecoins by trade volume are at risk of being banned in the EU from 2024, due to quantitative limits on issuance and use of [e-money tokens] denominated in foreign currency under MiCA,” the letter reads.

Nonetheless, CZ concluded that “overall, MiCA is fantastic”.

As it was being drafted, MiCA was designed to give Europe a headstart in global crypto regulation. The legislation regulates cryptocurrencies and service providers across the EU’s member states.

Stefan Berger, the lead negotiator on MiCA for the European Parliament, told The Parliament Magazine in an email correspondence in March that “because it is the first of its kind, MiCA has the potential to serve as a global role model.”

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Vitalik Buterin’s dad Dmitry Buterin said that The Merge will be a huge milestone in how the crypto space handles “its humongous waste of energy,” one of the biggest criticisms blockchain technology faces.

Speaking with The Block on Twitter, the elder Buterin — sometimes dubbed “the Grandfather of Ethereum” — said lowering the amount of energy Ethereum uses will be one of the biggest effects of The Merge.

According to Alex de Vries of Ethereum and Bitcoin energy consumption tracking platform Digiconomist, Ethereum’s current electricity demand is comparable to that of Portugal. Following The Merge, this could mostly vanish overnight and represents a massive step in making Ethereum more sustainable.

“Current times clearly show how big of a deal [energy waste] is — just look at Russia blackmailing Europe with energy over [the] Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Buterin said.

Born in Chechnya, Buterin lived in Moscow before emigrating to Canada with his family and is a serial entrepreneur and blockchain angel investor. Both he and Vitalik Buterin have opposed the war in Ukraine and supported efforts by the likes of Ukraine DAO to raise money in support of Ukraine.

Buterin also praised the community working on Ethereum, adding that The Merge was “a culmination of years of hard work by so many smart, passionate humans in the Ethereum community.”

“Research, hope, dead ends, disappointment, impatience, everything… Finally, it’s a foundation [for] so many other cool improvements planned for Ethereum.”

The Merge will happen when the Total Terminal Difficulty threshold for mining a block is hit, which is currently predicted to take place around 5 am UTC Thursday morning.

For the latest news and updates about The Merge, make sure to check out our live coverage.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Ether was trading down on Wednesday with a little over 20 hours to go to The Merge, where the blockchain will transition to proof of stake.

The Terminal Total Difficulty required for the upgrade is fast approaching and it’s expected around Sept. 15 at 04:42 UTC. However, the blockchain’s native token, ether, is down 7.9% in the past 24 hours, trading at $1,599, per Coinbase data.

The second largest cryptocurrency by market cap fell in line with the broader financial markets and cryptocurrencies on Tuesday following a hot inflation report from the U.S.

Traders had hoped for a lower inflation reading of about 8% year-on-year and -0.1% month-on-month. Yet these figures came in at 8.3% and 0.1% respectively — causing crypto and equities to go into tumult. Bitcoin was also down on Wednesday, as the worlds largest cryptocurrency by market cap lost 9.3% to trade at $20,360 per Coinbase data. 

Despite Ethereum’s impending move to proof of stake, it appears that ether remains unable to recover from yesterday’s shock news. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin said that he thinks The Merge will be “enormously impactful” and that there will be little disruption to the end user.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV on The Merge, the Ethereum co-founder also described the event as “probably nothing,” explaining that it will be “very likely nothing in the sense that there is no disruption that’s going to be experienced by end users.”

He added, “It’ll be as smooth as if your iPhone or your laptop has upgraded its operating system automatically overnight.”

ConsenSys is the blockchain software technology company behind crypto wallet MetaMask and Ethereum infrastructure platform Infura. It recently inked a deal with StarkWare to bring ZK-rollups to those products.

Lubin closed off the interview by discussing the history of the ecosystem, suggesting that The Merge was the third major event to happen in crypto after the advent of Bitcoin and the development of Ethereum.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

A man arrested by Dutch authorities last week for allegedly laundering stolen bitcoin worth tens of millions of dollars has been released but still remains a suspect, according to a statement by Dutch police on Tuesday.

The unidentified man, aged 39, is accused of laundering bitcoin that was stolen via a fake version of Electrum, an open-source bitcoin wallet, according to the police.

“Investigation showed that the man converted bitcoin into the privacy coin monero and vice versa, which makes the trail of transactions more difficult to track. His service was provided via the anonymous online network Bisq. It is suspected that the man earned a lot from laundering in this way,” the police said in a statement.

Monero is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency. Unlike bitcoin, monero’s distributed ledger system incorporates features that make it difficult to trace the participants in a transaction. Bisq is a decentralized crypto exchange.

According to the announcement, the police raided the suspect’s home in Veenendaal, a village in the Utrecht province. Dutch police seized the man’s crypto holdings including the profit made from the alleged money laundering.

Despite being released on Tuesday, the police say the man is still a suspect. Both the cybercrime teams of the central and eastern Netherlands are in charge of the investigation.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

More on The Merge

• Everything you need to know about Ethereum’s big upgrade
• Anthony Sassano explains why Ethereum’s ‘final boss’ is still the nation state
• How will Ethereum’s tokenomics change after the merge?
• After The Merge, NFTs will now be environmentally friendly
• What will Ethereum miners switch to mining after The Merge?
• Ethereum is grappling with the risk of censorship after The Merge
• Ethereum’s cat herder: Hudson Jameson reflects on the journey to The Merge

Update: 9:00 am UTC, Sept. 14 

Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin told Bloomberg TV The Merge is the third major event in the history of crypto after the advent of Bitcoin and the development of Ethereum.

Update: 8:55 am UTC, Sept. 14

CoinGecko co-founder Bobby Ong weighs in on the impact of The Merge on proof of stake more broadly.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Episode 86 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded live with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Bakkt Chief Product Officer Dan O’Prey.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.

Since going public last October, the digital asset management platform Bakkt has been working towards enabling more businesses to provide crypto services to their customers.

For example, in April of this year, Bakkt closed a deal with American Bank which allows the bank’s customers to buy and sell both bitcoin and ether.

In this episode of The Scoop, Bakkt’s Chief Product Officer Dan O’Prey lays out Bakkt’s ambitions for the future and breaks down his company’s strategy to help banks grow their client-facing crypto offerings.

According to O’Prey, Bakkt hopes to position itself as the underlying infrastructure layer that enables access to a variety of crypto services:

“Bakkt is aiming to be that infrastructure platform — those services under the hood — that can enable non-crypto companies to offer crypto to their consumers in a variety of different fashion.”

During this episode, Chaparro and O’Prey also discuss:

• What it means to be a bitcoin ‘maximalist’
• Where we fall on the digital asset adoption curve
• How brands can leverage crypto in their rewards programs

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Tron
On August 1st, 2022, Poloniex launched a faster and more stable trading system along with a brand new user interface. Poloniex was founded in January 2014 as a global cryptocurrency trading platform. With its world-class service and security, it received funding in 2019 from renowned investors, including H.E. Justin Sun, Founder of TRON. Poloniex supports spot and margin trading as well as leveraged tokens. Its services are available to users in nearly 100 countries and regions with various languages available. For more information visit Poloniex.com.

About Chainalysis
Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen
IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Web3 development platform Alchemy is looking to raise $12 million for a venture capital fund, according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing. 

Alchemy’s co-founder and chief technology officer Joseph Lau is listed as the executive officer for the Alchemy SPV III fund, according to the filing. 

The startup hit the milestone of becoming a unicorn in October with a fundraising round led by Andreessen Horowitz. A unicorn is a privately held company with a value over $1 billion.

Then, in December, Alchemy announced the launch of its ventures arm to invest in “teams building revolutionary products for the web3 ecosystem.” Partners for the venture arm are a16z, Lightspeed, Coatue and Altimeter. 

Alchemy declined to the comment on the raise. 

A web3 unicorn

The new fund raise comes hot on the heels of Alchemy’s first acquisition, which took place at the end of August. The firm acquired Ethereum developer and education platform Chainshot. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.   

Founded in 2017 by Nikil Viswanathan and Joseph Lau, Alchemy provides APIs to companies looking to build out their blockchain services. The APIs provide access to data, such as information on blockchain node functionality and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Adobe, Meta, Dapper and Aave are among some of the companies that use Alchemy’s services, according to its website. 

The company raised $200 million in a round led by Lightspeed and Silverlake in February, bringing its valuation to $10.2 billion. 

At the time of the raise, Alchemy told the Block that it had yet to tap the reserves it built up through previous raises. 

Alchemy’s venture arm

For Alchemy’s new fund, no funds have been raised and no investors are on board yet, according to the filing. 

Alchemy’s venture arm has previously invested in companies like crypto exchange FTX, scaling solution Arbitrum, and token management tool Alta. 

Broadly, venture funding in the blockchain sector has fallen over the last five months, according to data from The Block Research. Infrastructure investments are bucking the trend, however, with the highest concentration of seed deals since January 2021, per the data. 

Blockchain seed & pre-Series A deals from The Block Research

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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