Kid 2 is taking driver’s education — a rite of passage here in the U.S.A., though less so in these modern times, where your every everything is catered to by things like apps, mass transit, Uber, and that concept of “prolonged adolescence” exacerbated by the response to COVID — and likes to tell his parents about how much he’s learned. This also means we have to relearn some things where “The Science” used to be settled (“10 and 2!” is now “9 and 3!”).
Which brings us to “The Zipper Merge.”
Why Not A Video from the Province of Alberta?
We’ve been merging all wrong, it seems. Wait til the very last minute, use both lanes, and Bob’s Your Uncle.
Ethereum’s Zipper Merge
If you’re like me — laser-focused on ETH for months, then there was an implosion in prices and you cut your losses and moved on to other things, like making a living — then the Ethereum Merge has sneaked up on you like a construction zone on US-55. What do you do with your ETH? Do you have any ETH2? Do you know the difference? Do you care?
Understanding The Merge
Long story short, The Merge is where Ethereum moves from “Proof of Work,” or a mining environment that is similar to Bitcoin’s (but not as profitable) where miners are rewarded with coins for proving validity of transactions, to a “Proof of Stake” system, where owners are credited for staking (“parking”) their assets.
Y’all ain’t getting Web3 without Proof of Stake, so that’s where it’s headed. But not without a meandering road with a few…forks.
Once The Merge happens, rumored to be in a couple weeks but certainly in September, ETH will likely see some changes to its price — maybe mad fluctuations? — and it’s going to be bumpy.
So get yourself some tunes and buckle up for the ride. (No, we don’t know who to believe either.)
Some Thoughts THAT ARE NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE
These thoughts are not investment advice. But here are some considerations…
You Could Leave It All There*…
So yeah, there’s option one. For instance, I have some ETH parked on MegaCryptopolis. The game site is migrating to its own whole new world, so there’s not much choice I have in the matter. Whether I’ll get an airdrop there is another question: rumors abound about airdrops and whether they’ll happen, or not.
And if you *do* leave it all there, you’re looking at — thanks to calculations from Bitmex, with which we cannot trade in our region, natch — $45 per ETH.
Whales will make out like bandits. The rest of us could get a nice dinner out (after taxes, because, well, our jurisdiction will tax the airdrops like income and whatnot).
BTW, the Asterisk above means those assets you have parked in DeFi tools and other…things…like MegaCryptopolis. Or Sushi. Or a Uniswap pool.
…Or You Could Take It All Out of DeFi…
That’s another option here. Probably a pretty viable one, too, if you’ve lost any money from a rug pull. (Who among us?)
The thinking: you can’t trust anyone with your ETH so you might as well take yours out, and certainly take it out of any DeFi protocol with a high potential of rug pulls.
Sensible thoughts, but here’s option 3, which is where we’re landing:
…Something In Between
Here’s the winner.
We yanked some of our coins out of DeFi things, and we traded out of some duds to get ETH a couple weeks ago. BUT, we’ve also done that “why the heck not?” thing with a few. Holding a little in a pool of SUSHI and ETH, a little more in a couple barely there pools.
And holding tight.
We’ll All Be in One-Lane Traffic Soon
That’s the guess: from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake, some folks will head off onto side roads, others will go off-road, and we’ll stick in this lane for a little while, while holding a piece of one of those four-wheel drive things.
Hoping it’s not a Yugo.