One of many foremost considerations concerning the Merge is that of centralization. One other potential concern is the danger of scams, as most of the people will not be conscious of how the Merge works.
A elementary flaw within the Merge is that it’ll probably improve the focus of energy throughout the community. The extra precious a staker’s place is, the extra they are going to be rewarded for validating blocks. This might result in a scenario the place a small variety of rich people or teams management nearly all of the stake and have disproportionate affect over the community.
5 main organizations management 64% of the community’s stake. Within the occasion of a contentious fork, these organizations might collude to decide on which chain to assist, probably censoring transactions or double-spending funds. Already, critics are debating whether or not the Merge is a “wealthy get richer” scheme that may entrench the ability of present stakeholders.
Since staking will probably be required to earn curiosity on one’s ETH holdings, those that can not afford to stake could also be priced out of the market. This might result in elevated centralization as solely these with giant quantities of cash would be capable of take part in staking.
It’s additionally not unusual for scammers to reap the benefits of huge transitions resembling The Merge, pretending that customers have to do one thing (normally involving giving up tokens) to improve. Pockets upgrades are additionally a possible supply of scams, as customers could also be tricked into downloading malicious software program masquerading as an official replace.
Lastly, miners who’ve been mining in Ethereum’s mainnet for years might but determine to proceed on Ethereum’s outdated chain. In any case, many of those miners have probably incurred big electrical energy and {hardware} bills and should really feel that they’ve extra to realize by sticking with the tried-and-true mainnet.
This might result in a cut up in the neighborhood, with two competing variations of Ethereum operating concurrently. Whereas this situation is unlikely, it’s nonetheless a risk that traders ought to pay attention to.
