• Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin avoided Cardano in a poll regarding which non-Ether crypto he respects the most.
• Vitalik Buterin reaffirms that the Merge will occur around September 13-15.
• The Bellatrix hard fork is taking place on Tuesday, September 6 – to prepare the chain for the software upgrade.

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum – the largest smart contracts cryptocurrency- created several Twitter polls to discover different public opinions on his character. In one of the polls, Buterin inquired, “which non-Ethereum cryptocurrency do I respect the most?” Intriguingly, the list contained Bitcoin (BTC), Binance Coin (BNB and Solana (SOL) but excluded Cardano (ADA).

Why Buterin skipped Cardano in the poll?

The crypto community quickly picked up the matter, with many industry participants wondering why Cardano was not on the list. Cardano, a cryptocurrency project created by Buterin’s former colleague, Charles Hoskinson – is considered by many to be one of the most prominent protocols within the ecosystem.

Approximately 66,501 votes had been cast, with Bitcoin taking the top position at 55.5%. Binance Coin came second at 12.2%, leaving Solana in third at 9.9%. The remaining 22.4% did not participate in the poll but chose to get the final tally.

Buterin’s actions may aggravate the strained relationship between him and Hoskinson. The two developers have disagreed and gone head-to-head with conflicting opinions in the past. Hoskinson was one of the founders of Ethereum in 2014, but a later fallout with Buterin saw him deflect to build Cardano – a blockchain viewed as a potential “Ethereum Killer.” The beef between Buterin and Hoskinson continues, notwithstanding the many years since they parted ways.

Read more: Ethereum Price Prediction: With a 6% move, ETH price eyes $2,000 before the Merge

Buterin announces revised date for the Ethereum Merge

In other news, Buterin has outlined the exact time the Merge is expected to happen via Twitter. According to Buterin, rising hash rate levels are why the software update came earlier – between September 13 and 15.

Besides the revised date, Buterin urged node operators to update their clients ahead of the Bellatrix hard fork. The Bellatrix hard fork sets the Merge in motion by “*preparing*” the chain.

The software that enables Ethereum nodes to read blocks from the blockchain and smart contracts is known as an Ethereum client. Similarly, a “node” is the piece that runs or executes the client software.

Ethereum node operators are required to align themselves with the Bellatrix upgrade through an update on the consensus layer clients before the epoch 144,896 on the Beacon Chain. This upgrade has been planned to occur around 11:34:47 am UTC.

ETH/USD daily chart

Ethereum price is trading roughly at $1,668 at the time of writing. As reported earlier on Tuesday, Ethereum is inching closer to $2,000 ahead of the Merge. On the bright side, a break above $1,800 may cement the bulls’ presence in the market and might be the catalyst Ether price is waiting to launch a bull run.

On the other hand, Cardano price teeters around $0.5 at the time of writing. The token is finding it challenging to sustain an uptrend above $0.5, but analysts believe that ADA has the potential to cross the $1.0 mark. Cardano is the sixth-largest cryptocurrency boasting $16.8 billion in market capitalization.

Read more: Cardano price nears its end game as September promises to be the worst month for ADA