The highly anticipated switch from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoW) is currently 29 days away, the Ethereum Foundation stated on Wednesday, furthermore, The Merge will not lower on-chain costs. The Ethereum network charges printed some of the lowest on-chain fees since 2020 over the past month amid The Merge upgrade from the Ethereum Foundation.
The Ethereum Foundation, however, wants the general public to be aware that while The Merge will switch from PoW to PoS, the idea that fees will decrease is untrue.
The recently revised statement on the website noted that gas prices are a function of network demand in relation to network capacity. While switching from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake for consensus, The Merge does not dramatically alter any factors that directly affect network throughput or capacity.
After The Merge, Ethereum transaction fees won’t change, but customers who desire lower fees must use layer two (L2) scaling solutions and wait for additional Ethereum updates. The Surge, The Verge, and The Purge will be implemented by Ethereum after The Merge.
Through the use of sharding techniques and zero-knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups), The Surge will aid in scalability growth. Verkle trees will be used in Ethereum’s The Verge transition in order to achieve statelessness through the Merkle proof upgrade. Ethereum’s on-chain fees are at their lowest levels since 2020, despite the fact that they won’t be immediately decreased.
Currently, the typical network charge is 0.0012 ether or $2.28 per transfer. On Wednesday, an ERC20 transfer like USDT costs $2.19 per transfer, an Opensea marketplace sale costs $2.90, and a Uniswap swap costs $7.47. Since ether may be sent for between $0.04 and $0.06 on Loopring and Zksync, L2 fees are the lowest there.