It has been an extremely difficult year for investors. Not only is the stock market, as measured by the S&P 500 index, down almost 25% in 2022, but cryptocurrencies have seen their values plunge as well. A softening economy, spurred by central banks around the world hiking interest rates, is resulting in a risk-off mentality among market participants.
The bright spot, though, is that times like these provide astute investors who can take a long-term approach the opportunity to scoop up assets on the cheap. With the price of Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) down 65% in 2022, is now the time for investors to buy the dip?
On Sept. 15, Ethereum completed an update called The Merge, which changed the blockchain's consensus mechanism from a proof-of-work (PoW) system to proof-of-stake (PoS). PoW is known to be very energy intensive and expensive, whereas Ethereum says its move to PoS cuts the network's energy usage by 99.95%. With PoS, new transactions are validated by those who own the most tokens.
Source Fool.com