The thrill around Ethereum’s (ETH) approaching upgrade, The Merge, that involves the merger of two blockchains — Mainnet Ethereum and Beacon Chain — has unknowingly spurred rumors over the community.
Termed the most important upgrade within the good reputation for Ethereum, The Merge truly does mark the finish of proof-of-work (Bang) for that Ethereum blockchain. However, listed here are five misconceptions that stick out one of the rest.
Misconception 1: Ethereum gas charges will reduce following the Merge
Ethereum’s impending upgrade will reduce Ethereum’s infamous gas charges (transaction charges) is among the greatest misconceptions circulating among investors. While reduced gas charges tops every investor’s wishlist, The Merge is really a change of consensus mechanism which will transition the Ethereum blockchain from Bang to proof-of-stake (PoS).
Rather, lowering gas charges in Ethereum will need focusing on expanding the network capacity and throughput. The developer community is presently focusing on a rollup-centric roadmap to create transactions cheaper.
Misconception 2: Ethereum transactions is going to be faster following the Merge
It’s safe to visualize that Ethereum transactions won’t be noticeably faster. However, there’s some truth for this rumor, as Beacon Chain enables validators to write a block every 12 seconds, which around the Mainnet is roughly 13.3 seconds.
While Ethereum developers think that transitioning to PoS will enable a tenPercent rise in block production, the slight improvement goes undetected by users.
Misconception 3: The Merge can lead to downtime from the Ethereum blockchain
Contrasting the misconceptions that picture positive outcomes for Ethereum in the Merge, a well known rumor shows that the planned upgrade will momentarily take lower the Ethereum blockchain.
The developers anticipate no downtime as blocks transition from being built using Bang to being built using PoS.
Misconception 4: Investors can withdraw staked ETH following the Merge
Staked ETH (stETH), a cryptocurrency backed 1:1 by ETH, presently lies locked around the Beacon Chain. While users want so that you can withdraw their stETH holdings, the developer community has confirmed the upgrade doesn’t facilitate this transformation.
Withdrawal of stETH holdings is going to be provided throughout the next major upgrade following the Merge, referred to as Shanghai upgrade. Consequently, the assets will stay locked and illiquid not less than 6-12 several weeks following the merger.
Misconception 5: Validators won’t be able to withdraw ETH rewards til the Shanghai upgrade
While stETH remains blocked for investors until withdrawals are started again following a Shangai upgrade, validators may have immediate accessibility fee rewards and maximal extractable value (MEV) earned during block proposals in the execution layer or Ethereum Mainnet.
Because the fee compensation won’t be recently issued tokens, it will likely be open to the validator immediately.
Related: Ethereum will outpace Visa with zkEVM Rollups, states Polygon co-founder
Discussing his undertake Ethereum’s untapped potential, Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic told Cointelegraph that zkEVM Rollups, a brand new scaling solution for Ethereum, allows the smart contract protocol to outpace Visa when it comes to transaction throughput.
Sandeep Nailwal, Polygon’s other co-founder, echoed Bjelic’s ideas because he envisioned the answer slicing lower Ethereum charges by 90% and growing transaction throughput to 40–50 transactions per second.
