Some of the Common Misconceptions About the Ethereum Merge

Ethereum’s much-awaited Merge is finally happening and the date is also out which is creating some serious buzz in the crypto community. While the price of ETH also saw a hike in the last few weeks as compared to other altcoins following the excitement of users and holders around the Merge Event. According to the latest update, this merge of Ethereum’s mainnet and beacon chain may happen in the second week of September completely switching the network to the Proof of Stake mechanism allowing users to stake their ETH and become a part of the network as a validator and revoking the previous proof of work consensus mechanism.

With the hype and increasing buzz, many people are also confusing this merge event with an upgrade that is going to eradicate all the scalability issues of the network. Many misconceptions and a lot of misinformation is being spread on social media platforms regarding this merge and this should be addressed as people may become a victim of false rumors and myths. Some of these most common misconceptions are discussed below:

Reduction in transaction’s gas fees- Many people are hoping that this merge will effectively improve the scalability issues which would decrease the transaction costs. However, this is completely false information and has been denied by the Ethereum Foundation as well. The merge of the mainnet and beacon chain will not increase the capacity of the Ethereum network and this will not impact the gas fees required for transactions. The next updates on the network which are scheduled to be completed in the next few years will help to reduce the traffic and the transaction costs but with the current merge event, no change is expected in the gas fees.

Launch of ETH2 or a new token- Previously, the Ethereum Foundation used the term Ethereum 2.0 to refer to their plans of switching the network to a proof of stake mechanism which created misconceptions among the users that a new cryptocurrency named ETH2.0 will be launched. However, this notion is completely wrong as no launch of a new coin is expected with this merge event. The merge is simply a change in the consensus mechanism and the currently circulating ETH will remain the native coin of the Ethereum network. Anyone offering you ETH2.0 tokens or coins and giving false hope is just a scam or fraud as there are no plans to create a new cryptocurrency.

Ethereum network’s downtime during the merge event- Many social media accounts are also spreading false information on the network downtime and creating a panic in the market. The merge event will not affect the network processing or operation as there will be no downtime and the merge will simply change the consensus mechanism while your coins, transactions, and other trades can run smoothly without any delays.

Increased speed and rapid transactions- The Ethereum Foundation has also denied any myths about the increase in the speed of transactions on the network. As mentioned earlier, the merge event isn’t going to increase the network capacity so there will be no evident change in the transaction speed. The speed can gradually see a change of 10% after the network starts running on the PoS method but it won’t be easily noticeable for a common user.

The points discussed above are merely misconceptions and nothing else. However, the mentioned rumors may become a reality after the next upgrade of the Ethereum network which is expected in 2023. This upgrade namely sharding will divide the network into small parts that will then individually handle transactions reducing transaction processing time and gas fees.

If you are a cryptocurrency enthusiast and want to earn passive income by holding your cryptocurrency in your wallet, become a part of the ViCA community and learn about the arbitrage-powered ViCA Token.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Telegram | YouTube