When you heard that the much-anticipated Ethereum Merge was not happening in June, how did you react? Were you part of the camp that was too devastated to get out of bed? Or the one that couldn’t care less? According to one crypto researcher, the Merge is something traders should keep an eye on – especially because they might profit from it.
Just ‘playing’ facts
Cryptography researcher and critic Max Maher has expressed his views on the pros and cons of the merger. He added that Ether could benefit from a price “boost”, but asserted that gas fees would not go away. He pointed out that these fees would go to stakers rather than miners after the merger. For this reason, Maher thought the best way to take advantage of the merger was to become an Ethereum 2.0 stakingr, or “just hold”. He said,
“Currently, only 8.3% of Ethereum is being staked. That’s considered off the market. The higher percentage stakes, generally the better because there’s less Ether floating around, ready to be traded.”
Maher explained that an increase in the percentage of ETH staked would make the coin rarer, help reduce inflation, and put upward pressure on the asset.
At press time, the Eth2 deposit contract had more than 11 million Ether in it, worth roughly about $34,973,470,090.21.
So what about traders who don’t plan to become stakers or validators like Maher suggested? Depending on their loyalty to the Ethereum brand, some might decide to try other L1 chains for their DeFi needs instead.
In fact, data from DeFi Llama showed this might already be the case, as Ethereum’s TVL dominance was being squeezed by Terra and BSC. At press time, it had dropped down to 55.49%.
Raise the bar – not the stakes
Those who practically sent out “Save the Date” notices for the merger may be taking the delay pretty badly, but several Ethereum developers are against using the word “delay” to describe what happened. According to Tim Beiko, there is no “official date” for the merge and the teams are currently resolving issues with the phantom forks.
Meanwhile, an “Ethereum Beacon Chain community health consultant” pointed out that the June launch date was a prediction, as opposed to a promise.
