Merge Could 'Recast' ETH As A 'Global Institutional-Grade Asset': Report

With the cryptocurrency market slowly recovering from the bloody crash, Ethereum (ETH), with the help of The Merge or its transition to proof-of-stake, could become a "global institutional-grade asset," a new report has claimed.

A Bloomberg Intelligence report titled "Booms, Busts and Bitcoin," which came out Wednesday, called The Merge "an event catalyst that has the potential to recast Ether as a global institutional-grade asset." The outlet's fundamental dashboard shows that the Ethereum ecosystem has executed a strong recovery with The Merge's September launch fast approaching.

ETH outperformed various key adoption metrics with high price correlation, including non-zero balance addresses, active users and transactions "in absolute terms to the last bear market and relative to Bitcoin," the report noted, adding that ETH's non-zero balances are at their all-time highs with a 3-year 100% performance, which is almost twice the Bitcoin network's performance.

Additionally, active addresses saw a year-on-year increase of 5% and a growth of 113% compared to the number of active addresses it had three years ago — a feat that outperformed Bitcoin, "which was down 30% over the same period," according to the report. In terms of transfer volumes, the report indicated that Ethereum's year-on-year "remained firm" and only saw a "7% drop despite a price fall of 29%."

Ethereum core developers announced on July 29 that the third and final test before The Merge has been scheduled, noting that the initiative is just a step away from completion. The industry earned the moniker The Merge because it refers to the current mainnet protocol proof-of-work that Ethereum uses, merging with the Beacon Chain proof-of-stake blockchain system.

While many Ethereum investors are looking forward to The Merge, Canadian programmer and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said at the Ethereum Community Conference in Paris last month that after The Merge, ETH will only be around 55% complete. The Merge is only the beginning, as the blockchain needs to complete five phases to achieve its ultimate goal.

The other phases it needs to go through are The Surge, The Verge, The Purge and The Splurge. Buterin also claimed that the blockchain will be able to process 100,000 transactions per second as soon as it completes these five phases.

ETH was trading down 2.18% at $1,621.48 with a 24-hour volume of $16,131,861,504 as of 5:27 a.m. ET Thursday, based on the latest data from CoinMarketCap.