In this week's episode of Market Talks, we welcome Julian Hosp, CEO and co-founder of Cake DeFi, an online platform dedicated to providing access to decentralized financial services. He is widely regarded as a leading influencer in the crypto and blockchain space, with over 1 million followers across all of his channels globally. He is also a best-selling author, and his vision is to bring blockchain awareness and understanding to a billion more people by 2025.

The Merge has been all over the place recently, with different news outlets, influencers and YouTube channels covering the event as much as possible. But why does the Ethereum Merge actually matter, and why is it such a significant event in crypto? We ask Hosp to break it down for us.

Now that the Merge is finally complete and Ethereum has successfully moved from proof-of-work to proof-of-stack, what has actually changed? Will the network be any different for users, or will it behave differently for day-to-day transactions? Also, what’s next for Ethereum? Are there more upgrades or changes planned for the future? Will the Merge bring more institutional adoption now that the network is more environmentally friendly? 

After all the news and attention the Merge got, a lot of people were expecting there to be a huge pump or dump in the price of Ether 

ETH

$1,263

 and other cryptocurrencies. But the markets were largely unaffected by the event. This begs the question, was it all just hype? We get Hosp’s take on the matter.

Moving on from Ethereum to the new Consumer Price Index data, we get Hosp’s take on what the data means and why it caused Bitcoin 

BTC

$16,918

 and other cryptocurrencies to dump as soon as it was released. Bitcoin has been hovering close to the $20,000 level, and we ask Hosp if he thinks it can go below again, and how low it can go this time considering all the macroeconomic factors around the world. We also discuss what important price levels he is keeping an eye on for Bitcoin and why they matter.

Tune in to have your voice heard. We’ll be taking your questions and comments throughout the show, so be sure to have them ready to go.

Market Talks with Coffee N Crypto’s Tim Warren streams live every Thursday at 12:00 pm EST (4:00 pm UTC). Each week, we feature interviews with some of the most influential and inspiring people from the crypto and blockchain industry. So, be sure to head on over to Cointelegraph’s YouTube page, and smash those like and subscribe buttons for all our future videos and updates.