Five years in the making. A transition that went so seamless that most people even noticed any change. Ethereum has officially moved to Proof-Of-Stake on 15 Sep 2022. So what next?

The "Merge"

First off, it's important to note that this "merge" refers to Ethereum network migrating to the Proof-Of-Stake (PoS) consensus. The reason it's called the merge was because there was already a PoS chain running since November 2020, while upgrades were still being pushed and tests were still being ran. This was the Beacon chain, and on 15 Sep 2022, Ethereum has officially merged into the PoS chain.

This means that Proof-of-Work mining has become redundant for ETH – good and bad. The good being a clear energy-efficient chain. The bad being that existing miners who have already invested in the hardware have to switch to mine other cryptocurrencies, including the new ETHW (EthereumPoW), ETC (Ethereum Classic), and even Bitcoin. Since the merge, many of these other cryptocurrencies have seen an uptake in hash rate.

What About Prices?

Since the merge, ETH has gone down in price. As Ben Lily puts it, it's got to do with a lot of offloading of long spot positions and closing of short futures that functioned as a hedge.

You can also consider it as volatility, or that the bullishness has already been priced in, and this is a typical of sell the news type of event. Having said that, it's hard to ignore the fact that inflation has sustained its highs, and expectations of the upcoming rate hike has left most buyers on the sidelines.

As ETH creeps below $1,300, it's probable to retest the $1,000 support zone once again, even if prices are meant to go up in the long run. So if you're looking to buy cryptocurrencies, do keep your investment time horizon in mind.

A New Dawn For Me

It's been almost a year of deciding to go full-time on NFTs. I've had an incredible run, met amazing people, and I've always felt like I could give back more to the space. If I have to describe the journey in a word, it'll be "serendipitous" – because it's a unique mix of knowledge and experience (in media, in crypto, of the last bull and bear market) that helped me navigate this complex space.

I can't understate on that complexity. Every new person I introduced via a 90-min presentation (the quintessence of We're Early) felt like their perspectives opened up and it's a whole new world to explore. For me, I feel like I'm learning something new every week, and every major episode, be it a trend, a major screw-up, or a flopped launch, gives me new insights on how or what NFTs could be.

Being so zoomed in the past 10 months also made me feel like I need to get back in touch with the non-NFT world, which was also what inspired me to create and share my NFT knowledge and experience via:

We're Early

While in-person sharing sessions will form the bulk of what I'll be doing, I'll also be sharing the following on the website:

1. Presentation and education resources, which are free for anyone to adapt and use

2. Insights and updates on the crypto and NFT market (which is also why the content here will be migrated there)

3. Thoughts and ideas on building NFT utility, especially with the people I've met/will be meeting

I'll probably take the next couple of months to slowly figure out the structure and content on the new site. Both sites will exist meanwhile until an eventual switch to just We're Early, so let's see what comes.

Yes, it's a bear market. Crypto as a risk asset is still largely correlated with broader equity markets, and still affected by broader macro conditions, so it's definitely not going to be "Up Only". Most of the world are still oblivious to NFT, which also makes me incredibly bullish about its prospects.

In my opinion, we're incredibly early.