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

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

5 days ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

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Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.