Preparing For The Merge — A Complete Guide
The Merge on Ethereum is one of the most significant events happening to crypto. However, there are quite a few uncertainties regarding how it affects you!
Here’s a quick guide on what to expect when this update hits.
When is The Merge happening?
There are 2 key events that will happen before The Merge occurs:
- Bellatrix consensus layer upgrade (preparing the Beacon Chain for The Merge)
- Paris execution layer upgrade (Ethereum will officially switch from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake)
The Bellatrix upgrade is scheduled for epoch 144,896 on the Beacon Chain on 6th September, 11:34:47 (UTC).
Meanwhile, the actual date for the Paris upgrade is estimated to be somewhere between 10th-20th September.
What happens during The Merge?
If everything goes smoothly, you should not feel any differences in the entire network when it switches from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).
Whatever assets that you have on the Ethereum network (both ETH and ERC20 tokens) will still be accessible.
⏸ Deposits and Withdrawals will be paused ⏸
Many of the top centralised exchanges (e.g. Binance and FTX) will be pausing deposits and withdrawals of ETH and other ERC20 tokens during the 2 upgrades (Bellatrix and Paris).
As such, it is important that you do not send any tokens to centralised exchanges during these periods, as they may not be processed in time!
If you are worried about the safety of your assets, you can always store them in a non-custodial wallet like Krystal. We allow you to send, store and swap assets on 10 different blockchains, including BNB Smart Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, Fantom, Cronos, Arbitrum, Aurora, Solana and Klaytn.
⚠️ Be careful of scams ⚠️
Ethereum decided to remove the label ‘ETH 2.0’ label, so as to make The Merge less confusing.
One of the main reasons is scam prevention, as some scammers may trick users to swap the ETH that they hold for ETH 2.0.
As Ethereum transitions to PoS, we predict that scammers will be out in full force to trick you.
We strongly urge you to be extremely wary of anyone who DMs you with the following requests:
- Sharing your seed phrase with them
- Swapping all of your ETH and other ERC20 assets to a ‘new’ token on the PoS chain
As users of the Ethereum network, we do not need to do anything during The Merge, as everything will be done in the backend!
Moreover, if you share your seed phrase and private key with anyone, they will have full control over your funds! It is extremely important to keep it secure.
💡 Recommendation: do not perform transactions during The Merge
We highly recommend that you do not perform any transactions (Swap, Earn, Transfer, Bridge) on the Ethereum network during these 2 upgrades.
The network may be unstable during The Merge, so any transaction you make may not be recorded!
It would be best to wait until an official announcement by the Ethereum Foundation first, before you start performing transactions again.
All of your funds will still be available in your non-custodial wallets, so you do not need to worry.
🍴 What about forks? 🍴
Some ETH PoW miners have mentioned plans to fork the Ethereum chain and maintain its PoW state.
In the scenario that a fork of Ethereum (e.g. $ETHPoW) really does happen, these tokens may be airdropped into your wallet.
If you hold ETH in a centralised exchange like Binance or Coinbase, you could receive it in your account. However, this is subject to the forked token passing the exchange’s listing criteria.
A better way may be to send all your ETH into a non-custodial wallet (like Krystal 😉). When the snapshot for the distribution of the forked token occurs, you should receive the airdrop right away!
This is similar to what happened during the LUNA 2.0 airdrop, where the safest method was to hold LUNC in your own non-custodial wallet.
Can I finally unstake my staked ETH?
Unfortunately, you are unable to unstake your staked ETH just yet.
Withdrawal of staked ETH will only be enabled when the Shanghai upgrade occurs on Ethereum.
However, this is slated to occur only a few months after The Merge is completed.
Conclusion
We hope you’re as excited as us for the Ethereum Merge, which is the very first step in making the network more scalable! As we approach this mega event, do remember that you do not need to do anything on your end, and stay safe from scammers!
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