How to Prepare for the Ethereum Merge

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The Ethereum merge is upon us.

If you are still unaware of this momentous event, or are clueless about what to do, I got you.

Here’s a quick summary of what you need to take note of during the Ethereum merge.

What exactly is the Ethereum merge?

The current Ethereum Mainnet we are familiar with is secured by Proof-of-Work (PoW).  At the same time, there's a Beacon Chain running in parallel using Proof-of-Stake (PoS). 

When the existing Ethereum blockchain and the Beacon Chain are merged, processing of the validity of all transactions and proposing blocks on the Ethereum blockchain will change from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake permanently.

Why Merge?

The Merge into PoS will no longer require the blockchain to use the same energy-intensive hardware as PoW, making Ethereum more energy efficient and greatly improving the environmental impact of the blockchain.

This will also set the stage for further scalability upgrades not possible under PoW, bringing Ethereum closer to achieving the full scale, security and sustainability outlined in its vision.

However, ETH gas fees will not be affected by the merge at this point. This will not significantly reduce fees on the network or increase scalability.

What do i need to do for the Merge?

Actually, absolutely nothing.

You do need to be extra wary in the days surrounding the Merge, as scams will likely appear in abundance.

However, some developers and miners plan to fork the Ethereum blockchain to a Proof-of-Work ETH (PoW ETH) fork after the Merge. 

Doing so will create a new PoW ETH chain that will match your ETH balances with an equal amount of a new coin, called ETHW.

In light of this, there are actions you could choose to do to take advantage of this impending fork and new ETHW tokens.

But I would like to stress that this is not crucial. Not taking any actions at all is absolutely fine too!

Maximize your on-chain ETH 

First, you will want to maximize your on-chain ETH liquidity in your own custodial wallet.

This is because the new ETHW tokens from the forked Chain will match the ETH you have from mainnet.

This gives you much more flexibility to take immediate action with your PoW ETH, rather than waiting for your centralised exchange that might not support PoW ETH tokens.

Some actions you can take to maximize onchain ETH:

• Withdraw your ETH from centralised exchanges onto your wallet

• Remove liquidity from any liquidity pools on Ethereum mainnet

• Unwrap your WETH into ETH

• Bridge your ETH tokens from other chains and L2s to Ethereum mainnet

Prevent replay attacks from happening to you

A replay attack is essentially this:

When a transaction is done on PoW ETH, it can be copied and executed on ETH mainnet, without your approval.

This can be irrelevant if ETH PoW uses a different Chain ID than mainnet.

But to be safe, avoid taking any on-chain actions in the PoW ETH fork until it is confirmed that it is safe to do so.

Open accounts in different Centralised Exchanges to prepare

Once you have received your PoW ETH tokens, you would most likely want to sell them fast (especially if you are a believer of Proof of Stake ETH).

It is unlikely that decentralised exchanges on ETH PoW would support this, so your next best alternative is centralised exchanges themselves.

To prepare ahead of time, create accounts in different centralised exchanges that have announced that they will support PoW ETH. This can include smaller exchanges like MEXC, Bitrue, OKX, and more.

This will prevent you from scrambling to create new accounts to sell your PoW ETH tokens when the fork happens.

TL;DR

Ethereum merge is coming. It is absolutely okay to do nothing.

There might be a PoW ETH fork which essentially 'airdrops' you the same amount of ETHW that you have on the Ethereum mainnet.

These ETHW tokens may or may not be worthless - this is pure speculation at this point.

If you want to take actions to maximize potential ETHW you can earn from this fork, consider the actions above.

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