In anticipation of the upcoming Ethereum merge, the whole industry has been buzzing with rumors and speculations, but we have a bigger and more grounded indication of the public interest in the event as Ethereum sees a record surge in new wallet addresses with over 70 thousand daily registrations of new addresses. The total number of wallets jumped sharply to over 2.2 million.
The increase is driven by the daily trading volume and a notable surge in price with bulls pushing the asset to new heights before the merge which does not enjoy the same level of support from all users of the network. For example, mining will be unprofitable after the network moves to the proof-of-stake model in which those who stake will become validators. It is something that is not liked by a substantial portion of the community and many predict that a hard fork will happen during the merge.
We had a lot of interesting stories and speculations. Some experts think that the asset can drop to $400 and even lower if the merge goes wrong or fails to impress users. Others believe that ETH will start gaining momentum after a dip caused by market volatility. Remember that in the middle of August we reached an impressive resistance level of $2000. The price dropped back to roughly $1.5K right after.
The merge is also covered by many financial media outlets and crypt-related news sites with Vitalik Buterin often appearing to talk about the future of the network. We do not need any forecasts and predictions. Instead, we need more publicity. The attention of mass media and many internet communities to the event may attract more people who are interested in using Ethereum and many projects deployed on the network.
The surge in the number of new addresses also coincides with another interesting observation: many whales are moving their assets to exchanges causing traders to believe that there will be a massive selloff that will crash the market in the short term. However, it may also be an indicator that many people are anticipating that there will be a spike in demand.
