Navigating the Upcoming Ethereum Merge

First and foremost, it seems there has been quite a bit of confusion around the up-and-coming ETH upgrade. The Ethereum blockchain will not rename itself to ‘Ethereum 2.0’, change the ticker, or have any significant company re-branding. Regular users of the blockchain (those who send tokens, create decentralized apps, and trade NFTs) will not notice any meaningful change to their current user experience. The merge is only switching the way the network is secured (also called the ‘consensus mechanism’), from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) or from miners to people that are staking at least 32 ETH.

For the users who enjoy PoW, there will be a legacy Ethereum token, ETHW, airdropped to the holders of Ethereum one for one at the time of the chain split. Ethereum PoW (ETHW) will exist alongside Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC), similar to how Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision (BSV), and Bitcoin Diamond (BCD) exist alongside Bitcoin (BTC). There will be an influx of marketing for the ETHW token as there are Ethereum miners with deep pockets that need a PoW chain compatible with ETH to mine on in the future. Many large-scale projects, such as Circle (USDC), have openly announced that they will stay on the same Ethereum chain and switch to PoS after the merge.  

This consensus mechanism transition as a whole is in lockstep with increased environmental efforts from governments and large institutions around the world as Ethereum’s switch to PoS reduces energy consumption from validators by a factor of well over 1,000.