Google sees massive interest in Ethereum’s The Merge, adds event countdown clock

Sam Padilla, a blockchain developer for Google Cloud, demonstrated the most recent Google Search update, which features a real-time transition countdown with merging pandas.

Padilla revealed on Friday that the Google Search engine now displays a countdown clock for the highly-anticipated Ethereum’s The Merge. There is now a native countdown clock displayed with the current hash rate, difficulty, and merge difficulty when searching for “Ethereum Merge.”

Hey @VitalikButerin @drakefjustin & other @ethereum folks, go google "the merge" for a fun little surprise & appreciation.

Everyone is so excited for what is coming and appreciative of the work that has been going into this for years. pic.twitter.com/3bgifV6Ywn

— Sam Padilla (@theSamPadilla) September 9, 2022

The addition shows how deeply cryptocurrency has permeated FANG companies and how many people are crazily following the highly-anticipated event. Over the past few weeks, interest in the event has skyrocketed, and Google anticipates that it will continue to rise in the days to come.

Singapore, North Macedonia, Luxembourg, St. Helena, and Lithuania are the nations with the greatest interest in The Merge. Switzerland is the highest-ranking European nation at number 7, while China and the United States are at positions 17 and 18, correspondingly.

The development of the merging integration with Google, which Padilla led, also contributed to the rise in interest. The Blockchain developer stated that the “search and labs team internally” developed the search feature after he envisioned it.

It wasn’t just me.

And the actual lifting of the work was on the search and labs team internally. All I did was kickstart the idea and discussion that led to this hehe

But this is indeed pretty cool

— Sam Padilla (@theSamPadilla) September 10, 2022

As soon as the Ethereum’s transition from PoW to PoS is complete, the illustrated pandas will merge in classic Google style. Until the historic event happens, the pandas will also come closer to one another every day. Panda is a  popular meme in the Ethereum merging culture.

The execution layer is represented by a black bear in the meme, whereas the consensus layer is represented by a white bear. The merging of the bears into a single fighting panda is described as The Merge.

The Merge doesn’t interest Mark Cuban

However, not everyone appears to be enjoying the important event. Despite the excitement surrounding Ethereum’s switch to PoS, Mark Cuban cautioned that it might turn out to be a case of “buy the rumor, sell the news.”

The Dallas Mavericks’ owner believes that investors’ anticipation of the change may outweigh its practical applications. If it actually happens, the value of ETH may rise sharply before the Merge but fail afterward, plummeting.

Moreover, as TheCoinRise reported, several researchers said that the event might result in Bitcoin’s value crashing down.