Bitcoin holds above $20,000, Ethereum volatile after ‘Merge’ upgrade

Cryptocurrencies remained flat during Thursday's session after Ethereum's much-awaited ‘Merge’ upgrade.

Bitcoin fell about 1.17 per cent to $19,674 while the second-largest crypto by market cap, Ethereum, was trading with a cut of 0.68 per cent at $1590. On the other hand, Ethereum Classic was up by over 4 per cent at $38.48 in a volatile session.

Compared to Wednesday, the global crypto m-cap barely rose 0.1 per cent to $990.61 billion on Thursday, while volumes tumbled over 8 per cent in the last 24 hours to $88.47 billion as the investor community remained largely skeptical about the ambitious software upgrade.


As per a Coindesk report, traders of futures tracking the two tokens took on some $80 million in cumulative losses, with Ether futures seeing $67 million in liquidations.

Primarily, the Ethereum ‘Merge’ is a software upgrade that results in a transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake for validating transactions.