As the Ethereum merge date draws closer, holders are wondering just how the event will shake up Ethereum Gas Prices.
Ethereum's transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake consensus is one of the most awaited crypto events of the year. Titled Ethereum 2.0, Ethereum's shift to PoS consensus will improve the blockchain's energy consumption by deploying Ethereum staking.
However, Ethereum's path to the merge is not an easy one as several other users are also demanding the blockchain to execute an Ethereum hard fork instead of going forward with the Ethereum merge. Ethereum prices are also positively responding to the merge.
However, users are much more excited about the fact that this transition may radically improve the existing Ethereum gas prices. Let's take a look at whether Ethereum gas prices after the merge will gradually decline or not?
ETH Holders Hoping To See Gas Prices Fall With Merge
Ethereum devs have finally unveiled a tentative date for the great Ethereum merge to take place. Scheduled to launch on September 15, the merge will help the blockchain transition towards the highly anticipated POW consensus.
This new transition will aid the blockchain to consume comparatively less computational power than PoW, which will render the blockchain to become eco-friendly and cheaper than its former version.
Furthermore, the merge has got crypto investors excited about the fact that they may soon have to pay low gas fee charges while initiating transactions on the Ethereum blockchain
ETH transactions are notorious for levying extremely high gas fee charges, especially at the time of network congestion. Several users have complained about how they had to pay hefty gas charges to initiate simple crypto transfers. Some have shifted away from Ethereum to alternate blockchains to make use of cheaper fees.
Now with the merge being scheduled for later this month, crypto investors are hoping that Ethereum's transition to PoS may bring some reprieve from high gas fee charges.
However, The Ethereum foundation has finally shared an update adding that the gas fee prices will remain unchanged even after the merge.
How Ethereum Merger Could Affect Ethereum Gas Prices
The Ethereum merge will see a dramatic shift in how the Ethereum blockchain operates, but this might not impact Ethereum gas fees immediately.
According to DeFi researcher Vivek Raman, the merge will not affect prices of its gas as anticipated by many users.
Raman added that the cause of Ethereum's high gas fees is because of increased block space demand. Ethereum's transition towards proof of stake will not impact its gas fee charges as expected by many users.
He further stated that users can access Layer 2 solutions if they want to cut their Ethereum gas fee costs.
Instead, ETH gas fees may instead fall when Ethereum gets to the next phase after the merge - sharding. Set to launch in 2023, this has several benefits for Ethereum. As the official Ethereum site explains:
This will continue to reduce network congestion and increase transactions per second.
Increasing the number of transactions should help Ethereum become much more affordable as it scales upwards.
The ethereum foundation has also cleared certain misconceptions about the merge adding that the merge will not affect the gas prices at all.
"Misconception: "The Merge will reduce gas fees.?
False. The Merge is a change of consensus mechanism, not an expansion of network capacity, and will not result in lower gas fees." the blog post added.