Examining the Ethereum Merge

IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS & DISCLOSURES

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Coin Definitions

Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Amongst cryptocurrencies, Ether is second only to Bitcoin in market capitalization.

Solana is a public blockchain platform. It is open-source and decentralized, with consensus achieved using proof of stake and proof of history. Its internal cryptocurrency is SOL.

Avalanche is an open-source platform for launching decentralized finance applications and enterprise blockchain deployments in one interoperable, scalable ecosystem.

Binance is digital asset native to the Binance blockchain and launched by the Binance online exchange.

Cosmos is a network of sovereign blockchains that communicate via IBC, an interoperability protocol modeled after TCP/IP, for secure data and value transfer.

Near is a decentralized development platform that uses a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism and will eventually feature a sharded architecture to scale transaction throughput.

Polygon is a platform design to support infrastructure development and help Ethereum scale.

Optimism is a layer-two blockchain on top of Ethereum. Optimism benefits from the security of the Ethereum mainnet and helps scale the Ethereum ecosystem by using optimistic rollups.

Boba is a Layer-2 optimistic rollup scaling solution currently built on Ethereum.

Arbitrum is a layer 2 solution designed to improve the capabilities of Ethereum smart contracts — boosting their speed and scalability.

Looping is an open protocol for building high-performance, order book decentralized exchanges on Ethereum.

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