News

Ethereum Just Completed The Long-Awaited Merge Upgrade

According to a Twitter post from co-founder Vitalik Buterin, The Ethereum blockchain network just completed the most ambitious software upgrade ever to take place in crypto.

Published

4 years ago

September 15, 2022

Nour Nasir

ethereum just completed the long-awaited merge upgrade

Ethereum is probably the most important commercial highway in the crypto landscape, and it has now been “merged” — a process that replaced older, power-sapping network computers with more modern and energy-efficient machines. The upgrade will see Ethereum’s energy expenditure decline by a massive 99%.

This kind of upgrade has never been attempted in crypto until now, which is no surprise, as Ethereum is home to 3,500 apps and handles billions of dollars of crypto transactions. End-users shouldn’t notice the merge, but it will eventually make the network faster and cheaper to run.

Although now completed, Ethereum’s merge could see the network suffering from occasional glitches or hang-ups for at least several weeks. Exchanges like Coinbase paused Ethereum withdrawals and deposits during the event in anticipation of hacking attempts and general instability.

There is some concern that EthereumPOW and other forks may create copies that still run on the older computers, potentially creating confusion and leading to more scams and hacking attempts. USDC stablecoin issuer Circle and oracle provider Chainlink have both announced that they won’t support forked versions of Ethereum, and whether those forked chains remain viable over time is something that isn’t yet known.

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So how will the merge affect crypto mining? Only time will tell, but as profitability has already taken a nosedive this year, the merge will further squeeze those who make a living from crypto mining. Energy costs are rising globally, and now miners are faced with the prospect of changing to new equipment or selling up for good.

So what does the future hold for Ethereum in the wake of these massive changes? So far, the jury is out, but some traders anticipate the network overtaking Bitcoin in the long run and are hedging vast sums of money on their prediction.

News

Samsung’s Fold Goes Wide, And The Whole Galaxy Range Gets Pricier

A new titanium build and a first-of-its-kind AI chip for wearables anchor the range, yet native Qi2 charging still isn’t part of the deal.

Published

3 days ago

July 23, 2026

Dana Saadeh

Samsung

Samsung has run its Galaxy foldable and smartwatch reveals in July for several years now, which is likely a deliberate way of jumping early on the autumn hardware calendar. The 2026 event stuck to the same timings, though prices climbed too, albeit unevenly: $100 on the Flip, a new $2,100 Ultra tier above last year’s flagship, and $30 to $50 on the watches.

At the top sits the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra at $2,100, a slab that measures just 4.1mm open and carries a 200MP main sensor, a 5,000mAh battery and an 8-inch interior display. Beneath it, the $1,900 Galaxy Z Fold 8 makes the more interesting bet. Samsung has stepped away from the tall, narrow shape it spent recent generations refining: the Fold 8 folds horizontally, so it’s wider than it is tall, with a 4:3 interior screen that sits about 9mm wider than the Ultra when closed. It drops the telephoto lens but gains battery, at 4,800mAh.

The clamshell Galaxy Z Flip 8 rounds out the phones at $1,200, up from the Flip 7’s $1,100, which was itself up from the $1,000 Flip 5.

All three devices run the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy and share a new Flex Titanium construction, a titanium alloy layer set beneath the flexible OLED that Samsung says strengthens display support, absorbs impact and reduces crease visibility. The progress has limits: none of the phones support Qi2 charging natively, 18 months after the Qi2-ready Galaxy S25. That means buyers will still need a magnetic case to get the most from a Qi2 charger.

The wearables move in the same upward direction. The Galaxy Watch 9 ($380 Bluetooth, $430 LTE) and Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 ($700) both run Qualcomm’s 3nm Snapdragon Wear Elite, the first wearable chip with a dedicated Hexagon NPU capable of supporting AI models with two billion parameters. The Ultra 2 is 12 percent thinner than its predecessor despite an 800mAh battery and a display reaching 5,000 nits.

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Pre-orders open today. The devices are set to reach shelves on August 7.