‘An Important Milestone’ – Bitcoin and Crypto Giant Binance Unveils Ethereum Price Game Changer Ahead of Major Upgrade
Bitcoin
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The Bitcoin price has been trailing the Ethereum price in recent weeks and months as hype builds over the long-awaited major upgrade – with a potential “black swan” event hot on its heels.
Now, bitcoin and crypto giant Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, has revealed that it is expanding its fee-free trading to include ethereum in the run-up to and in the wake of ethereum’s merger upgrade (and after ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin issued an urgent message update notice).
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Binance, the world’s largest bitcoin and crypto exchange, removes ethereum fees around … [+]
Ethereum’s fusion upgrade, scheduled to begin with the bellatrix hard fork on Tuesday and not complete its rollout until between September 10 and September 20, will see the network move from the energy-intensive proof-of-work consensus mechanism to the more power-efficient proof-of-stake . The switch is expected to reduce ethereum’s carbon emissions by 99%, according to the Ethereum Foundation.
Binance, which will waive fees for customers trading ethereum using Binance’s stablecoin BUSD
Following the collapse in cryptocurrency prices this year that led to a sharp drop in trading volume, crypto exchanges have increasingly followed fee-free trading pioneer Robinhood in offering low- or no-fee crypto trading.
Binance’s move “may actually represent something of a ‘market grab’ strategy,” Sipho Arntzen, Next Generation Research analyst at Julius Baer, told Financial Timesthat broke the news.
“This ranking breach by Binance may represent the beginning of a trend of fee-free trading among the major centralized exchanges. We may in the future have a situation where fee-free trading is the norm rather than the exception, similar to what we have seen in the world of traditional finance.”
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The Ethereum price has fluctuated wildly in recent months as traders try to predict the upgrades … [+]
Despite the hype of ethereum’s merger upgrade, the crypto market has stalled at just under a combined $1 trillion.
“Bitcoin remains firmly anchored at the psychologically significant round level of $20,000, changing by only fractions of a percent for nearly a week,” Alex Kuptsikevich, senior market analyst at FxPro, said in an emailed statement. “Ethereum continues to draw green candles, but this is more than nominal growth.”
Last month, Binance followed one of its biggest rivals Coinbase in saying it will suspend ethereum deposits and withdrawals during the blockchain’s transition to its proof-of-stake (PoS) beacon chain in September.
