Ethereum Merge
You must be curious to know what you should do after this Ethereum Merge.
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Do you need to sell your ETH tokens or what upgrades you must be doing as a Dapp developer?
Merge Merge Merge … The internet and the Crypto world have been filled with this term.
Recently Google has also shown the countdown in search results when you search Ethereum Merge in it.
Ethereum Merge happened on 14-15th September.
This is the time of chaos. Everyone is sceptical of this revolutionary period.
Whether you are a User, ETH holder investor, or a Dapp developer, it is natural to get confused.
Here we will discuss what will happen after this Ethereum Merge and what you should do.
Ethereum Merge is nothing but Ethereum Blockchain changing its consensus layer.
Any blockchain such as Ethereum has two mechanisms it works on –
- Execution Layer
- Consensus Layer
Execution Layer
The execution layer defines the nature of a Blockchain. Here it means that Ethereum is a decentralized, open-sourced network that comes with the smart contract facility.
Consensus Layer
The Consensus layer as the name suggests is about agreeing.
The consensus layer provides a mechanism that is used to decide, who will mine the next block.
In Proof of Work, the one who has more computation power aka more energy aka more powerful systems will get to mine the next block.
On the other hand in the Proof of Stake mechanism, this miner is elected through staking ETH tokens.
In this merge, Ethereum will only change its Consensus layer and not the Execution layer.
That means Ethereum will still be a decentralized, open-sourced network with smart contract abilities.
To change its consensus layer Ethereum went from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
PoW to PoS Explained
Some experts explained the transition of Proof of Work to Proof of Stake like a car.
It’s like changing the engine of the car while it’s still running. Similarly, the consensus mechanism is like an engine of the Ethereum blockchain that needs to be changed while the network is still active and all the transactions and activities would still be happening on it.
Now that sounds uncertain because many things could go wrong.
This transition happened without any issue to any of ETH’s users or holders.
Therefore it took 2 years for this whole transition.
Ethereum has explained everything that a user or investor needs to do before and after this merge.
What do users and holders of Ethereum need to do for the Merge?
Nothing! Yes, as mentioned earlier, the network will still be active and will work the same while the transition is taking place.
So if you are an Ethereum holder and investor you do not need to do anything with your ETH fund and wallets.
There is no such thing as buying ETH 2.0 tokens. So beware if any fraud would come to you and ask you to upgrade your ETH coins.
There will be no impact on the coin, it will remain the same as it is and will be safe in your wallet or Crypto exchange account as all the Crypto exchanges will be a part of this transition.
There will be no new Ethereum coins nor will your old coins, NFT go out of use.
They will remain the same. There is no action required on your side.
What do Dapp developers need to do for the Ethereum Merge?
There will be almost no impact on Ethereum Dapp developers and smart contracts. However, there are still things to take into account for the Ethereum Merge as a Dapp developer.
As Ethereum describes on its platform, few changes are going to take place because the Consensus layer will be changed.
These are –
- On-chain randomness sources
- The structure of the block will be changed
- Block’s timing also known as the slot will be changed
- The concepts of the SAFE head and the finalized block will also be changed
- There will be changes in the Opcode.
Check this post by Tim Beiko on Ethereum’s website to know more about these changes.
What will happen after the Ethereum Merge?
The merge is nothing but Ethereum’s main net merging with the Beacon Chain.
Beacon Chain was a parallel Blockchain to Ethereum which was an exact copy but ran on the PoS.
This transient happened through many testnet merges and finally, the Beacon Chain is merged.
After this merge, Ethereum will be shifted to PoS which fulfills the vision of Ethereum to make it more scalable and sustainable.
Ethereum will be more sustainable as PoS will reduce energy consumption to 99.95 % from proof of work.
After the merge, Ethereum will work on Sharding.
In the Sharding system – the data of the chain will be distributed in shards-means small parts.
Therefore it will reduce data storage requirements and will help Ethereum to be more scalable.
Note: Users and Investors do not need to do anything for the upgrade. They just need to be careful of scammers asking for private information on the name of the ETH upgrade.
