Dispelling myths around the Ethereum Merge

Post The Merge, all Ethereum dApps will become incompatible, you will have to move your tokens & crypto, there will be a considerable down time, gas fees will be low and it is going to be pure chaos — these are some of the voices we've been hearing leading up to the days of the Merge and surprisingly, even after it.

Let me tell you, it's all false. None of the above is gonna happen!

The Ethereum Merge, at its core, is the change in the underlying mechanism of how Ethereum adds new blocks of information to its chain. If I have to draw a parallel, I'd say, think of the Ethereum Virtual Machine as a car. Previously the car was running on Gas (Proof of Work) which was expensive, not eco-friendly. Now the car will run on Electricity (Proof of Stake) which is affordable, inclusive and eco-friendly.

In the same manner, Ethereum blockchain engineers have been working hard for the past two years to ensure that the machine continues to run, there is no down time, and during the transition no power issues occur.

You can dig deeper into how Proof of Work (PoF) or Proof of Stake (PoS) both work but here's something super brief to clear out long-held misconceptions:

1. You don't need to move, convert, or change storage of your crypto & tokens. Stay away from scammers trying to sell you ETH2 compatibility lingo.

2. You don't need to upgrade your dApps, everything will work fine.

3. No, the gas fees will not change. Gas fees are influenced by the network traffic, not the consensus mechanism.

4. No there will not be any downtime, the migration of mainnet to Beacon Chain will happen seamlessly. No data, information blocks or crypto will be lost.

Change doesn't always have to be bad, no matter how frightening it seems. The Merge, especially, is a change that is welcome and for the current and future ages.

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Author: Fatima Rizwan from Metaschool