As with many things in life, events are not siloed. When any type of event or action occurs, planned or unplanned, it causes changes and reactions to surrounding components. Think of a stone thrown into a pond creating ripples in the water while also altering the aquatic environment below the surface. This school of thought can also be applied to the Ethereum Merge.
The Ethereum blockchain, with its native coin Ether (ETH), is a pillar of the crypto asset industry — an industry that has become increasingly mainstream with each passing year. Ether is the second most popular altcoin, with people searching Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) for “Ethereum” an average of 2.1 million times a month. ETH has risen to a value of more than $100 billion in terms of market capitalization, with the Ethereum blockchain serving as a common choice for developers building decentralized applications (DApps). In a survey conducted by the Bybit crypto exchange, Ether is the second most heard-of alternative to Bitcoin (BTC), with one in six United States adults saying that they’re familiar with it (15.4%).