- Messari analyst Ryan Watkins argues that Ethereum 2.0 will be a greater catalyst for crypto market than Bitcoin’s halving.
- Ethereum Core developer Justin Drake claims they could have released Ethereum 2.0 a year ago.
Messari analyst Ryan Watkins made a prediction about the impact of Ethereum 2.0 for the platform and the crypto industry. According to a Twitter post, Watkins believes that Ethereum 2.0 will be a bigger catalyst than Bitcoin’s halving for the performance of the crypto market. Watkins said:
ETH 2.0 is a much stronger catalyst than the Bitcoin halving simply because it’s an uncertain and fundamental change.
Watkins therefore highlights the unknown effects that Ethereum 2.0 would have on the market. In opposition, Watkins proposes that Bitcoin’s halving is a predictable event that can potentially be anticipated by the market. This is one of the points that other analysts, such as Melem Demirors, have argued. Like Watkins, some of these analysts believe that the effect of Bitcoin halving was already reflected on BTC price months before the event.
However, there is no evidence to support this theory, as yet. On the contrary, Bitcoin halving has been a historically bullish event. In recent halvings, BTC and the crypto market have experienced massive bull runs. One year after the halving of 2016, BTC reached an all-time high of $20,000.
Much more than anticipating the effects of a particular market event, analysts such as Adam Cochran have proposed that Ethereum 2.0 will be bullish primarily because of the introduction of Proof of Stake (PoS) and the supply shock that will result from the accumulation of ETH whales, and the expected approval of a proposal to burn ETH with each completed transaction.
Ethereum 2.0 could have been launched a year ago
Tweets from Ethereum Core developer Justin Drake have provoked a debate. Drake claimed that the developer team could have released Ethereum 2.0 a year ago. However, the developer said that they have complicated the task for themselves, Drake said:
We made Eth2 hard for ourselves:
many design iterations
many community clients vs one EF-led client
libp2p vs devp2p; BLS12-381 vs BN254
We could have launched a year or two earlier the easy way. It was painful but it was right. Our investments will pay off for decades.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin responded to Drake. Buterin confirmed the developer’s comment and stated that the “release” of Ethereum 1.0 in 2014 is one of his biggest regrets. Buterin said:
My biggest regrets today are *not* launching eth1 in Jul 2015 instead of Sep 2014. They are about all the deficiencies in eth1 that we now have to spend years painfully fixing. Hex tree, RLP, gas costs, no account abstraction….
Doing better now will indeed pay off for decades.
