How to get ready for the Merge, if you hold Ethereum, and why scammers are a threat

The Ethereum network update, called the Merge, is not long away. The event, which will occur on September 19, is expected to change the crypto world and affect several inherent aspects of the sphere. However, there is a perception that the Merge will not change anything, especially for consumers. A Reddit user Set1Less believes in that, too. Here’s what he said.

What do I have to do after the merge?

The answer is nothing.

As a reminder, the merge is switching the Ethereum network from the Proof-of-Stake (PoW) mechanism to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). You can read more about this event here. It’s important to emphasize that the entire crypto world is following the event, and representatives are waiting for much change.

But according to the author, nothing will change in user experience (UX) for the end user after the merge. He is sure that the wallets, explorers like Etherescan, and dApps will function like they are now. That’s why users don’t have to do anything whatsoever.

“To an end user, absolutely nothing will change regarding UX. You don’t have to move your coins anywhere or migrate anything. Don’t fall for such scams if they pop up asking you to complete a few steps for merge. They are all scams,” he recommended.

To prove that nothing will change, Set1Less recalled the test network Gorli, whose merge is already done. On it, transactions already work on the PoS consensus, but everything continues to operate as before: wallets and decentralized applications.

Users’ wallets after the merge will continue to support the Proof-of-Stake network. Also, if the account held test network coins on Gorli before the update, they can still be used for transactions, as before, without any changes.

It is worth mentioning that the main internal change will be that the mining complexity will become zero after the event. You can see the difference by looking at the block before the merge on the Gorli test network and after the merge.

The difference is that the mining complexity became zero after the merge, and the total complexity was permanently at 10,790,000. It is assumed that the same will happen for the leading network because the mining will gradually stop, the complexity will become zero, and the overall complexity will be frozen at the last Proof-of-Stake block.

The future of PoW

What is not excluded, according to the author, is the appearance of several forked chains. However, none of the main dApps will support them. The decentralized oracle network Chainlink has already stated this, also support for forked chains is not expected by stablecoins and other key infrastructures. And without those things, there is nothing of value in them.

It’s worth noting that this runs the risk of repeated attacks and that a fraudulent decentralized app could use the signature of a consumer’s wallet in another chain to steal their funds in the main chain. In this regard, Set1Less urges everyone to be careful when signing anything on unknown dApps or websites that will appear after the merge.

However, both PoS and PoW consensus is not devoid of pros and cons, so they can be replaced at any time by a new mechanism that can eliminate all the existing problems. This could be a new blockchain network based on a new consensus called the Proof-of-Identity. What it is and why it is better than existing ones, read in our article.