What's Up With Ethereum Today?

What Happened: Ethereum ETH/USD plunged over 21% on a seven-day trailing basis; the cryptocurrency shed close to 6% to fall below $1,900 at press time over the course of the day.

ETH traded 5.73% lower at $1,880.35 at press time. The cryptocurrency declined 21.3% over a seven-day trailing period.

The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization fell 2.72% against Bitcoin BTC/USD, the apex coin over 24 hours.

ETH has still managed to give returns of 153.13% since the year began but has plummeted 56.84% since its May 12 all-time-high of $4,632.35.

See Also: How To Buy Ethereum (ETH)

Why It Matters: Notably, Ether’s steep decline comes ahead of a much-awaited hard fork that is likely to launch on Aug. 4, as per a CoinDesk report.

The “London” hard fork will replace Ethereum’s proof-of-work protocol with proof-of-stake.

See Also: Proof of Stake Vs Proof Of Work

This week, Power Ledger POWR/USD, an Australia-based blockchain firm, announced it will be migrating from Ethereum’s network to Solana citing the lower energy output of Solana’s Proof-of-History and Proof-of-Stake mechanisms.

Power Ledger is migrating its energy blockchain to a @solana consortium chain, while keeping #POWR tokens on @ethereum. We'll provide an update with further details shortly. Stay tuned!https://t.co/4v1O6ynRrc

— Power Ledger (@PowerLedger_io) July 13, 2021

ETH’s current decline is mirrored across major cryptocurrencies such as BTC and Dogecoin (DOGE), which all fell on Tuesday.

While cryptocurrencies like BTC are thought to be a hedge against inflation, rising CPI inflation in the U.S.  has not been a catalyst to reverse the downwards trend in BTC.

Read Next: Is Now The Time To Buy Ethereum (ETH) Cryptocurrency?