What's Driving Token Prices? (September 14, 2022)

ETH (+1.4%) - Happy Merge Day! We are roughly 9 hours away from the merge that will officially transition Ethereum to proof-of-stake. This means that Ethereum can no longer be mined, and users must stake Ethereum to secure the network and earn inflation rewards (ETH) from the protocol. Ethereum’s energy consumption will also go down by 99.5%. However, transaction fees and speeds will remain roughly the same. Although this is one of the most significant technological upgrades Ethereum has undergone, we expect it to go off without a hitch—Ethereum developers have carefully tested the merge in several environments to ensure a smooth process. If you want to watch the merge in real time, view it here.
MATIC (+2%) -Starbucks announced a partnership with Layer-2 scaling solution Polygon for its Web 3 strategy. The coffeehouse chain will migrate its current Starbucks Rewards loyalty program to Polygon and issue NFTs instead of stars. Starbucks is dubbing the program “Starbucks Odyssey,” as users will be able to access benefits and experiences using these NFTs. The partnership is a massive step for the mainstream adoption of digital asset technology and could bring millions of new users to crypto.
NEAR (+4.4%) - Layer-1 blockchain Near held its annual conference (Nearcon) this week, which was full of major announcements for the protocol:

● Launching a $100M VC fund in partnership with Caerus Ventures targeting "Web 3 Culture and Entertainment"
● The next stage of its sharding roadmap, which introduces 200 new validators as part of a 4-step plan to shard the network over the next year
● USDT will launch on Near
SWEAT (+43%) - Sweatcoin is a “walk-to-earn” Web 2 company that recently announced it would be tokenizing and spinning out a part of its business. This new Web 3 business, called Sweat Economy, issues users SWEAT tokens as a reward for being active. The new SWEAT token is designed to give users access to exclusive merchandise and special offers within the new mobile app that boasts 13 million accounts. Late Monday, the SWEAT token was listed on exchanges and airdropped to past Sweatcoin users. The token ran up from its listing price of $0.007 to $0.07 in a matter of minutes and has since settled around $0.06, giving it over a $143m valuation.

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