Kalam Crypto #38: Merge-tember, Ethereum Merge starts today!

“If people understood how our financial system works, I think there would be a revolution before tomorrow”  Henry Ford

Ahlan wa sahlan, and welcome to the 38th edition of CoinMENA's weekly newsletter, Kalam Crypto. Every week we will bring you the latest news and developments from the exciting world of cryptocurrencies. This week, Merge-tember! Phase 1 of the Ethereum Merge starts today, we have all you need to know about one of the most anticipated events in the history of crypto. All that and more, so let's dive into this week's letter, and talk crypto:

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Blog of the week 📝

Merge-tember: Phase 1 of the Ethereum Merge, “Bellatrix”, will start today September 6th, 2022 at 11:34:47am UTC. This is by far one of the most anticipated events in the history of crypto. Our CEO Talal Tabbaa covered all you need to know about the Merge in a blog post released last week. Here’s the TLDR of the deep dive blog:

- Ethereum network will shift from PoW to PoS

- Reduce energy consumption by ~99.95% 

- Reduce ETH issuance rate by 90% 

- Does not reduce transaction (gas) fees significantly

- ETH becomes net deflationary if gas fees are 16 gwei or above

- Staked ETH withdrawal function will be available 6-12 months after the Merge

Lightning Round ⚡️ A quick rundown of the week’s headlines: 

More Quantitative Tightening on the way: The US Federal Reserve’s QT will ramp up in September, as the central bank aims to reduce its balance sheet by $9 trillion. Historically, this does not bode well for equities and crypto prices.

Bitcoin mining good & bad news: Revenues jumped by 10% in August. However, profitability is squeezed as Bitcoin’s difficulty adjustment increased by 9.26%, the second largest increase this year. 

Crypto.com pull out of Champions League Deal: The exchange pulled out of a five-year sponsorship deal with UEFA Champions League, worth over $100 million annually.

Meta expand NFTs to select users: Selected US-based users will be able to post their NFTS on Instagram and Facebook. Users can connect to several digital wallets including MetaMask and Coinbase Wallet, and they will also support three blockchains: Ethereum, Polygon, and Flow. 

Compound upgrade DeFi lending platform: Compound launches Compound V3, allowing users to borrow a single, interest-earning asset, USDC, using native tokens like Chainlink, Uniswap, Compound, (all available on CoinMENA), as well as wrapped bitcoin (wBTC) as collateral. 

DAI to unpeg from the US Dollar?: MakerDAO’s co-founder, Rune, proposed a path to “free-floating” DAI to de-peg the stablecoin from the US Dollar. The proposal calls for the DAO to accumulate ETH over the next 3 years. The “Collateral Strategy” aims to reduce exposure to “Real World Assets” over time.

CoinMENA News 🗞

We added SIX new digital assets: You can now buy, sell, receive and store CRO, GRT, ENJ, BAT, CRV, and YGGon CoinMENA. Users can diversify their portfolio with 27 digital assets on the platform!

Celebrate the Merge with 30% off trading fees: Got enough ETH? Enjoy 30% off trading fees until Sep 10, 2022. Discounts will decrease as we get closer to the completion of the Merge. Take advantage and trade now!

Earn up to $3,000: 10 users can get 25% of their trades back! All you have to do to qualify is buy/sell for 25 USD or more before 16 September 2022, Friday, at 11 PM Bahrain/KSA time.

Tweet of the week 🐥

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin spent the weekend ratio-ing anti proof of stake tweets

Quiz Corner ✅ 

Last week’s question: Which tokens run on Ethereum?

Answer: All of the above

This week’s question: How many total Bitcoin halvings will occur?

1. 50

2. 25

3. 32

4. 15

See the answer in next week’s newsletter.