Then, copy that formula down for the rest of your stocks. But, as I said, dividends can make a huge contribution to the returns received for a particular stock. Also, you can insert charts and diagrams to understand the distribution of your investment portfolio, and what makes up your overall returns. If you have data on one sheet in Excel that you would like to copy to a different sheet, you can select, copy, and paste the data into a new location. A good place to start would be the Nasdaq Dividend History page. You should keep in mind that certain categories of bonds offer high returns similar to stocks, but these bonds, known as high-yield or junk bonds, also carry higher risk.
You can think of this as the engineering that allows for data transfers on the blockchain to take place. Execution layers give you the power to conduct a transaction. The Beacon Chain is the consensus layer in the system. Because blockchains are essentially decentralized public ledgers, they need a way to verify or invalidate the transactions taking place within them.
This is how a blockchain governs itself without third parties. Right now, the Ethereum mainnet uses a system called Proof of Work to validate transactions. Proof of Work is one of the main reasons why blockchain technology has a less-than-stellar environmental reputation. Together, the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains use more than TWh hours of energy annually, which places them squarely between Italy and the United Kingdom in terms of electrical energy consumption.
The process is energy-intensive by design. Requiring resource-heavy computing processes to try to mess around with the ledger disincentivizes people from doing so. And how is proof of stake different? Proof-of-stake consensus, which the Beacon Chain will bring to Ethereum, is orders of magnitude less energy-intensive than PoW — Instead, it ensures network security by having users stake an amount of their cryptocurrency in hopes that the system will randomly choose them as a block validator.
Aside from the millions of NFTs the blockchain authenticates, innumerable other decentralized apps and decentralized financial systems depend on the blockchain to function. The blockchain also symbolizes the crypto and NFT movement and Web3 in general. A successful merge could be a sorely needed shot in the arm to an ecosystem that is weathering yet another crypto winter. But, while many see the merge as a big win for Ethereum and its environmental impact, not everyone is happy about it.
The switch will directly affect the countless ETH miners worldwide who earn cryptocurrency for performing PoW calculations. Where crypto mining requires expensive equipment to solve cryptographically-rooted problems, staking involves nothing of the sort.
Even a dedicated laptop could do the job. This could mean more people could act as validators in Ethereum, making it more decentralized. Another issue is security. There are reasons to believe the merge will make Ethereum more secure, but there are always two sides to the crypto coin.
The blockchain also symbolizes the crypto and NFT movement and Web3 in general. A successful merge could be a sorely needed shot in the arm to an ecosystem that is weathering yet another crypto winter. But, while many see the merge as a big win for Ethereum and its environmental impact, not everyone is happy about it.
The switch will directly affect the countless ETH miners worldwide who earn cryptocurrency for performing PoW calculations. The merge will essentially eliminate the need for their existence along with their bottom line. Will there be an eth hard fork? If those disgruntled Ethereum miners gather enough support to continue operating a proof-of-work version of Ethereum, they could potentially fork the network.
A blockchain fork is essentially a split in the network where the now two chains share the same ledger history but continue in their own directions after the separation. When these forks happen, whether via mass dissent or a hacking event, they can result in the duplication of digital assets.
This was the case when bad actors hacked DAO in June , the decentralized autonomous organization that launched earlier that year on Ethereum. It was an extremely centralized move for the supposedly decentralized chain, but one the Ethereum community took in dire circumstances. Crucially, though, the hackers were able to keep their funds on their version of the forked chain, which became known as Ethereum Classic.
So, you would want to become a validator, not only because you will be getting ETH in return for your services but also because you want to decentralize the network, you want to be a participant. And you also agree with all that Ethereum stands for. Several well-known Web3 entities — including Lido, Coinbase, Kraken, and Binance — control large percentages of staked ETH on the Beacon Chain, leading some to fear that they could become targets of censorship attempts by government agencies.
As of last week, Lido controlled Doing this would be incredibly difficult, since a hacker would need to own the majority of staked ETH in the system to do so, which would be prohibitively expensive to acquire. However, such a situation is only possible when both assets use the same blockchain ID. Thankfully, even the most vocal and popular proof-of-work forking advocates have said their proposed networks would change all chain IDs. There is an element of goodwill involved here, but this is the nature of decentralization.
How will the merge affect gas fees? Gas fees are the cost of conducting a transaction on Ethereum, and they can skyrocket during busy periods like when an NFT project is minting , potentially adding hundreds of dollars to transaction costs. Ethereum developers have been hard at work at the merge for years, delaying it multiple times in the process.
To pull off a switch of this magnitude, engineers have been conducting dress rehearsals for the merge in recent months involving several Ethereum test networks testnets to look for bugs or hiccups in the transition process. The most recent of these tests, which took place on the Goerli testnet, successfully merged earlier this month. First is the Bellatrix upgrade , which activates the merge on the Beacon Chain, followed by the Paris upgrade, which removes any dependency on proof-of-work mining.
If all goes smoothly, Ethereum developers expect the merge to take place during the week of September 15, With any luck, the merge will go off without a hitch, and the Web3 community will have all the more reason to celebrate and promote a positive environmental message within and without its ranks.
The switch will directly affect the countless ETH miners worldwide who earn cryptocurrency for performing PoW calculations. The merge will essentially eliminate the need for their existence along with their bottom line.
Will there be an eth hard fork? If those disgruntled Ethereum miners gather enough support to continue operating a proof-of-work version of Ethereum, they could potentially fork the network. A blockchain fork is essentially a split in the network where the now two chains share the same ledger history but continue in their own directions after the separation. When these forks happen, whether via mass dissent or a hacking event, they can result in the duplication of digital assets. This was the case when bad actors hacked DAO in June , the decentralized autonomous organization that launched earlier that year on Ethereum.
It was an extremely centralized move for the supposedly decentralized chain, but one the Ethereum community took in dire circumstances. Crucially, though, the hackers were able to keep their funds on their version of the forked chain, which became known as Ethereum Classic. So, you would want to become a validator, not only because you will be getting ETH in return for your services but also because you want to decentralize the network, you want to be a participant.
And you also agree with all that Ethereum stands for. Several well-known Web3 entities — including Lido, Coinbase, Kraken, and Binance — control large percentages of staked ETH on the Beacon Chain, leading some to fear that they could become targets of censorship attempts by government agencies. As of last week, Lido controlled Doing this would be incredibly difficult, since a hacker would need to own the majority of staked ETH in the system to do so, which would be prohibitively expensive to acquire.
However, such a situation is only possible when both assets use the same blockchain ID. Thankfully, even the most vocal and popular proof-of-work forking advocates have said their proposed networks would change all chain IDs. There is an element of goodwill involved here, but this is the nature of decentralization. How will the merge affect gas fees? Gas fees are the cost of conducting a transaction on Ethereum, and they can skyrocket during busy periods like when an NFT project is minting , potentially adding hundreds of dollars to transaction costs.
Ethereum developers have been hard at work at the merge for years, delaying it multiple times in the process. To pull off a switch of this magnitude, engineers have been conducting dress rehearsals for the merge in recent months involving several Ethereum test networks testnets to look for bugs or hiccups in the transition process. The most recent of these tests, which took place on the Goerli testnet, successfully merged earlier this month.
First is the Bellatrix upgrade , which activates the merge on the Beacon Chain, followed by the Paris upgrade, which removes any dependency on proof-of-work mining. If all goes smoothly, Ethereum developers expect the merge to take place during the week of September 15, With any luck, the merge will go off without a hitch, and the Web3 community will have all the more reason to celebrate and promote a positive environmental message within and without its ranks.
The future of Web3 Significant changes in blockchain systems are a kind of pressure test for the communities that support them, and Ethereum is no different. Vitalik Buterin and the majority of the Ethereum community faced just such a test when DAO was hacked, and they decided to commit to the ideals of fair play in Web3 and left Ethereum Classic in the dust.
The merge represents a similar kind of value test, just under different circumstances. For example, the 32 ETH needed to independently stake as a validator is a high barrier to entry for most of the community. This is something that Vitalik [has talked about] a lot. He would love to have people running [and validating] nodes on their cell phones someday. And with the merge, you could, in theory, do that if you have a flagship smartphone. Share This Article. Network effects are typically positive, resulting in a given user deriving more value from a product as other users join the same network.
An example of a crypto that largely benefits from the network effect is Bitcoin. Lucky for Bictoin it has seen mass adoption through retail investors and now institutions are buying it, therefore sealing its inevitable fate as a worldwide store of value. A couple years ago almost all of the crypto projects being launched were being launched on Ethereum.
As more and more projects are launched on Ethereum, there are greater incentives for others to join the ecosystem. At the end of the day, network effects may bring customers to a platform, but solid products are what make customers stay. First Mover Advantage: Similar to the network effect, first mover advantage is largely overrated.
First mover advantage is exactly that, an advantage. History shows that plenty of market dominators get crushed by innovation, i. Disadvantages Despite how groundbreaking and revolutionary Ethereum has and will be for the world, it has many disadvantages that I believe will hold it back in the long-run from truly living up to the vision it was originally built on.
Scalability: Anyone who is remotely familiar with Ethereum knows that the gas fees are a huge problem. Ethereum 2. If Ethereum 2. In order for Ethereum to innovate or integrate new ideas or tech, it has to continuously rewire itself in order to accomplish anything. This is a huge problem that has plagued the project for years. Other projects have a solid foundation where new additions can be easily added like adding lego bricks on top of another obviously exaggerated but the point remains. Eventually, there will be a tipping point, where projects like Cardano and Polkadot which were built on solid foundations and researched heavily before being built, will be able to out develop Ethereum exponentially as they are able to develop and progress far easier.
Leadership: First and foremost, Vitalik Buterin is an incredibly smart person, super genius some may say. The issue is leadership and intelligence are not the same, and Vitalik lacks the leadership Ethereum needs.
Its main advantages lie in its network effect and first mover advantage. Network effects are typically positive, resulting in a given user deriving more value from a product as other users join the same network. An example of a crypto that largely benefits from the network effect is Bitcoin.
Lucky for Bictoin it has seen mass adoption through retail investors and now institutions are buying it, therefore sealing its inevitable fate as a worldwide store of value. A couple years ago almost all of the crypto projects being launched were being launched on Ethereum.
As more and more projects are launched on Ethereum, there are greater incentives for others to join the ecosystem. At the end of the day, network effects may bring customers to a platform, but solid products are what make customers stay.
First Mover Advantage: Similar to the network effect, first mover advantage is largely overrated. First mover advantage is exactly that, an advantage. History shows that plenty of market dominators get crushed by innovation, i. Disadvantages Despite how groundbreaking and revolutionary Ethereum has and will be for the world, it has many disadvantages that I believe will hold it back in the long-run from truly living up to the vision it was originally built on.
Scalability: Anyone who is remotely familiar with Ethereum knows that the gas fees are a huge problem. Ethereum 2. If Ethereum 2. In order for Ethereum to innovate or integrate new ideas or tech, it has to continuously rewire itself in order to accomplish anything. This is a huge problem that has plagued the project for years.
Other projects have a solid foundation where new additions can be easily added like adding lego bricks on top of another obviously exaggerated but the point remains. Eventually, there will be a tipping point, where projects like Cardano and Polkadot which were built on solid foundations and researched heavily before being built, will be able to out develop Ethereum exponentially as they are able to develop and progress far easier.
Leadership: First and foremost, Vitalik Buterin is an incredibly smart person, super genius some may say. That has to do with the fact that many crypto websites rank exchanges based on sheer trading volume. So, sprucing up volume figures here and there is a tempting shortcut that can instantly give them more visibility and bring in more customers. And the smaller the exchange, the more drastic figure massaging typically is. Which means such exchanges are faking nearly all their bitcoin trades.
The second culprit is whale investors who open then immediately close their positions for no economic reason. It's an illegal practice that big-pocketed traders exploit to create a false impression of demand and manipulate markets, which can be extremely effective in pump and dump schemes.
Aug 31, · SuperRare Co-Founders Explain How the Merge Will Shape the Future of NFTs. There has been so much publicity around the Ethereum Merge that it has caused Ethereum to rise to new heights, value wise. Over the summer, it hit a high price of $1, as of August . Aug 31, · Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin has indicated that he would support measures to burn the stake of any validators that censor Ethereum’s protocol at the behest of regulatory .