The market has been seeing a drastic decline and most new investors are beginning to panic. We have been riding a constant upswing for so long now, that too not see that constant increase is alarming. This might just be a time to panic though. In my previous article, I touched on how ICO are hurting Ether and the Ethereum network but the news got worse as more accusations have come out against Tether.

A brief history on Tether, it’s meant to act as a stable coin in an unstable environment, its value would be the same as the US Dollar. Tether is run as a company which would buy Bitcoin and then give out a token instead of USD, the problem is they were giving out more than they had.

Tether is supposedly backed by ‘a US dollar’ and not ‘ the US dollar’. Meaning, the US Government has nothing to do with the coin. Instead, some wealthy folk are putting up the cash to back the tokens and charging a transaction fee and making money that way.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission sent subpoenas on Dec. 6 to virtual-currency venue Bitfinex and Tether. Tether’s coins have become a popular substitute for dollars on cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide, with about $2.3 billion of the tokens outstanding. Skeptics have questioned whether the money is really there. This raises many questions for Jan Ludovicus van der Velde who is the CEO of both Bitifinex and Tether.

This video was uploaded in 2017

It seems that amongst all this bad news and market uncertainty Ethereum has become a sort of safe haven for investors. I think now is the time for Vitalik to step in and provide some stability to this mess. What better way could that be achieved than by giving us the lighting network and the long-awaited Casper software update.

Transactional volume on the Ethereum blockchain has “more than doubled” within the last several months. The network has reportedly processed an average of ten transactions per second for periods lasting as long as a few days. This speed is more than double the average of Bitcoin’s 4 tx/second.

Casper will turn Ethereum from a Proof-of-Work network into a Proof-of-Stake network. Proof-of-Stake networks do not rely on mining in order to confirm transactions and add them to the blockchain. Instead, PoS nodes perform ‘forging’ duties; they create new blocks as needed as transactions are processed. This also drastically reduces the carbon footprint of miners as an added bonus.

The PoS network will promote further stability on the blockchain network and the value of Ether. This will also prevent crypto whales from manipulating the market further, driving down prices to only buy at reduced prices to pump again.

All of these things together should have very positive effects on Ethereum and the people’s trust in it. Will 2018 be Ethereums chance at the top to become that leader? I think it will and I think now would be the perfect time to finally give us the Casper software update and stabilize the market.

I always figured that Ethereum would take the top spot I just didn’t think Vitalik would have to play the Sheriffs’ role in this modern day wild west world known as crypto.

You may also be interested in: Are ICOs hurting Ethereum or How to buy and cash out Ether in Canada