Ethereum is the second largest crypto in the world based on market capitalization levels, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t affected by the major fluctuations that rocked the digital asset sector over the past couple of years. However, 2024 is predicted to be a positive year for the market, with prices picking up speed and investors seeing considerable returns. Before that happens, investors must consolidate their portfolios and ensure that they’ve acquired as many coins as they need to. The issue of how to buy crypto currency becomes important here, as the price fluctuations can contribute to losses for beginner traders.
And while the market has been around for quite a while, innovation continues to be the most critical asset of the crypto ecosystem. Here are some of the novelties that will impact the marketplace in 2024.
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AI
Artificial intelligence has come to the forefront of technological developments in 2023. While many are stoked about the potential for innovation and better efficiency, others are concerned about possible issues such as surveillance or the propagation of fake news. For the crypto space, the biggest threat has been an increasing push towards centralization. And while some investors and analysts are concerned that a coalition between the blockchain and AI could spell trouble for the former, there are also some who believe it will be a positive thing.
One of them is Vitalik Buterin, one of the Ethereum co-founders. Buterin believes AI tech could be the solution to an issue located deep within the coin’s coding. It’s the bugs located in the system which could pose serious technical challenges and risks for users. It’s not artificial intelligence itself but rather AI-based auditing that can be employed to identify and fix all the errors present in the code.
Dencun
Buterin’s statements have arrived during an essential time for Ethereum as the platform prepares to launch the much-awaited and highly-anticipated Dencun upgrade. The projected date is March 13th, but things can change on extremely short notice in the crypto environment. The last upgrade on the network allowed investors to withdraw their staked funds, something that was initially expected to cause disturbances across the market.
Analysts believed that the massive withdrawals would destabilize prices and cause the coin to plunge to very low levels. Luckily, this didn’t occur, and after a momentary event that saw more withdrawals, investors started staking more. The figures eventually reached record levels previously unseen in the Ethereum market. The reason for this activity is that investors felt that the ability to withdraw their funds whenever they feel like it gives them more freedom, so they feel safer staking as well.
Dencun was already implemented on the Goerli testnet as early as January 17th, but the event was overshadowed by a bug that prevented the finalization for approximately four hours. All upgrades are crucial for the long-term roadmap of the blockchain.
Future updates
This will naturally not be the last upgrade the Ethereum blockchain will get. On January 2nd, Vitalik Buterin shared the coin’s roadmap for the following upgrades, and there’s a lot in store for ETH over the following years. The Merge changed the system from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus, and occurred in September 2022. It integrated the mainnet with the Beacon Chain blockchain.
The Surge is the next step, and it aims to complete roughly 100,000 transactions per second. It will enhance the blockchain’s scalability after the Merge reduced its carbon footprint and decreased emissions by 99%, making Ethereum far more sustainable. The Surge will also operate on Layer 2 networks. The Scourge is the next projected update, and it aims to mitigate the risks related to the MEV, the Maximal extractable value. It will also help with liquid pooling and address concerns surrounding the emergence of centralization in the ETH ecosystem.
Next up is the Verge, which is set to make block verification a much simpler endeavor so that all it takes is downloading a few bytes of data and performing some basic-level computations. The Purge will eliminate all technical debt and minimize the costs of participating in the network. It will also simplify the processes and the protocol itself. Then, the Splurge will fix all the loose ends and see to everything that the previous updates didn’t solve.
EIPs
In October 2023, Ethereum core developers began discussing the schedule around the next mainnet hard fork for the first time. No significant issues occurred in the meantime, and the Dencun upgrade was launched on the testnet just according to plan. In the future, the Goerli network will be subjected to deprecation, meaning that client developers won’t maintain it any longer. This is the last time it is part of a testing regimen, and the Holešky will replace it in the future.
At the moment of its launch on September 15th, the new testnet had a 1.6 billion supply in native coins, meaning that it is potentially more accessible than the older model. This is ten times the amount of coins located on the mainnet, but developers were comfortable producing this amount as employing roughly 10B of supply is the norm among devnets. The other improvement proposals include account abstraction. ERC-4337 and ERC-6900 will center on the concept of smart accounts.
This has considerable implications for the end-user experience, as it will allow investors to reduce transaction costs and guarantee social logins. Transient Storage Opcodes and Restrict Self Destruct, also known as EIP-1153 and EIP-6780, are expected to reduce gas fees and enhance both stability and scalability within the network.
Competitive edge
Although it might not seem so on the surface, the crypto environment is actually quite competitive. The upcoming upgrades could make Ethereum more adept at facing its rivals and give it a competitive edge over other cryptocurrencies. This is particularly important in the context of the emergence of the so-called Ethereum killers, the most important of which is said to be Solana. As the marketplace continues to change, the older coins are consolidating their positions, but they also need to take the necessary measures and precautions to keep up with the newcomers.
Ethereum is one of the most trustworthy and reliable cryptocurrencies, but it is still a relatively new asset class. 2024 is set to bring new developments for the blockchain, so investors have much to look forward to.
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