Molly Jane Zuckerman writes...

Today, the crypto markets are seeing almost all green.

But no crypto is up as much as Ether, clocking in at an almost 50% gain in price over the past week. Bitcoin and BNB are the next biggest gainers on CMC's top 10, but they’re still only showing weekly gains of 20%.

Why is Ethereum pulling away from the rest?

The most popular explanation is "the merge" — the ever imminently approaching change from PoW to PoS. Just last week, Ethereum developer Tim Beiko noted during a developer’s call that Sept. 19 was the latest proposed date for this switch.

But…

A quick look at our past coverage of potential merge dates includes Beiko noting in April that the merge would be "likely in the few months after" June — and ETH core developer Preston Van Loon saying in June that the merge would happen "August — it just makes sense."