Bellatrix, the update on Beacon Chain that will open the door to the Ethereum Merge, will arrive on Sept. 6, and because of this, the popular exchange Binance has announced that it will eliminate fees on trading to buy and sell ETH from Aug. 26, 2022, through Sept. 26, 2022.
The zero fees refer, however, only to the exchange between Ethereum and BUSD, the stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar created by Binance itself.
The exchange’s goal for this initiative, as explained in the press release, is to:
“Lower the barriers to entry for everyone, allowing as many users as possible to take part in a moment that is destined to change the history of Ethereum and, more broadly, to mark a major evolution within the entire crypto system.”
Summary
Binance: how exchanges are preparing for Ethereum
Beyond Binance, other exchanges are also announcing their own innovations to prepare for the Ethereum Merge. Just today Coinbase has, for example, stated that it may list the cryptocurrency that will arise from the blockchain fork. As of today, it is still unknown neither whether Ethereum’s PoW fork will happen, nor whether the cryptocurrency that is expected to be born from this fork will survive, but we do know that Coinbase is considering the possible scenario of keeping both cryptocurrencies listed on its platform.
Bitfinex also launched Chain Split Tokens a few days ago, tokens that allow users to trade on the potential PoW fork of Ethereum if indeed new fork tokens were to come about.
News on the Merge
As announced by the Ethereum Foundation, the Bellatrix update is scheduled for epoch 144896 on the Beacon Chain, which is expected to be reached at 11:34:47 am UTC on September 6, 2022. The final Merge, on the other hand, will most likely occur on September 15, according to calculations, and will be triggered when the total difficulty touches the value of 58750000000000000000000.
This date is certainly marked on all the calendars of cryptocurrency holders and not only. It is a day that is now expected since 2014 when Vitalik Buterin first started talking about Proof of Stake for Ethereum.
According to JP Morgan, this is a great opportunity for Ethereum and its institutional and retail investors, who are likely to benefit from Ethereum’s transition from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake. Unfortunately, however, it appears that the Merge may not lower Ethereum’s blockchain fee costs, and in any case, the fee reduction, instead, will only be possible by resorting to layer 2 solutions.
