Rumours have been circulating about Ethereum’s ( -ETH) upcoming upgrade, The Merge. This involves the merging of two blockchains, Mainnet Ethereum, and Beacon Chain.
The Merge is considered the most important upgrade in Ethereum’s history. It marks the end of Proof-of-work (PoW) for the Ethereum blockchain. Here are five myths that stand out from the rest.
Misconception 1 – Ethereum gas fees will decrease after The Merge
One of the most common misconceptions among investors is that Ethereum’s impending upgrade will lower Ethereum’s notorious gas fees (transaction charges). Reduced gas fees are a top investor’s wishlist. However, The Merge is an upgrade of the consensus mechanism that will transform the Ethereum blockchain from PoW (PoS), .
To lower Ethereum’s gas fees, we will need to increase the network capacity and throughput. To make transactions more affordable, the rollup-centric roadmap is being developed by the developer community.
Misconception 2 – Ethereum transactions will be quicker after The Merge
It is likely that Ethereum transactions won’t be significantly faster. This rumor is not true, however, Beacon Chain allows validators publish a block approximately every 12.3 seconds on the Mainnet.
Although Ethereum developers believe that PoS will allow for a 10% increase of block production, users will not notice the slight improvement.
Misconception 3 – The Merge will cause downtime for the Ethereum blockchain
Contrary to the positive outcomes that are expected for Ethereum from The Merge a popular rumor suggests the upgrade will temporarily take down the Ethereum blockchain.
Developers anticipate no downtime when blocks go from being constructed using PoW to PoS.
Misconception 4 – Investors will have the ability to withdraw staked Ethereum after The Merge
Staked Ethereum (stETH), which is a cryptocurrency that is backed 1:1 by Ethereum, currently remains locked on the Beacon Chain. Although users would love to have the ability to withdraw their stETH holdings at any time, the developers community confirmed that this upgrade is not possible.
The next major upgrade following The Merge, also known as The Shanghai upgrade, will allow withdrawal of stETH holdings. The assets will be locked up and in liquid for at least six to twelve months following the merger.
Misconception 5 – Validators won’t be able withdraw ETH rewards until the Shanghai upgrade
Until withdrawals are resumed after the Shangai upgrade to stETH, investors will be unable to access stETH. However, validators will immediately have access the fee rewards as well as the maximal extractable value (MEV), earned during block requests from the execution layer and Ethereum Mainnet.
The fee compensation tokens will not be issued new, but will be immediately available to the validator.
Related: Polygon co-founder says that Ethereum will surpass Visa with zkEVM rollups
Mihailo Bjelic, Polygon’s co-founder, shared his views on Ethereum’s potential. He told Cointelegraph that zkEVM rollups, a new scaling solution, will enable the smart contract protocol outperform Visa in terms transaction throughput.
Bjelic’s co-founder of Polygon, Sandeep Nailwal, also saw the solution to slashing Ethereum fees by 90%, and increasing transaction throughput from 40-50 transactions per seconds to 40-50.
