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While there’s 50 days left until the week of September 19, the crypto community has been discussing whether or not Ethereum developers will delay the penciled-in date for The Merge. Moreover, on July 27, the crypto hedge fund Galois Capital published a survey on Twitter that indicates more than 33% of the survey’s respondents think Ethereum could split in two once again.

The Merge Getting Delayed in September Becomes a Topical Conversation

After the so-called penciled-in date for The Merge was announced, the price of ethereum (ETH) and ethereum classic (ETC) skyrocketed in value against the U.S. dollar. The Ethereum developer and Beacon chain community director, Superphiz, explained that the “timeline isn’t final,” but the planning timeline he shared said The Merge could be implemented on the week of September 19. Essentially, The Merge will finalize the transition from a proof-of-work (PoW) chain to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus model.

Almost immediately after the announcement, the price of ethereum jumped considerably higher after previously suffering from the bear market downturn. ETH has gained 62.4% against the U.S. dollar in the last 30 days. However, with the date getting closer there’s a lot less hype and people are now wondering if Ethereum developers will delay The Merge fork. The subject of delaying The Merge has been a topical conversation on social media this weekend. One individual wrote:

I think everyone’s too fixated on the September deadline for The Merge that they think everything has to be settled within the next few months. But what if the Ethereum Foundation just delays it again?

Ethereum Supporter Says It’s a ‘Low Probability Bear Scenario if The Merge Is Delayed’

There are multiple Twitter threads discussing the possibility of The Merge getting delayed and a myriad of theoretical scenarios. One individual named Chris who calls himself a “retired degen” published a thread that shows the upsides of The Merge if it is successfully implemented with no issues.

Chris insists The Merge would drop the blockchain network’s energy use down 99.95%, it will make ETH deflationary and institutional investors will flock to the project. However, Chris further remarked that a bear scenario could take place if The Merge is delayed again.

“A low probability bear scenario is if the merge is delayed, AGAIN,” Chris explained. “A delay isn’t highly probable because the Devs are quite confident enough to set a date for the event. But then some testnets are yet to be migrated from PoW to PoS. Namely Ethereum’s Goelri and Sepolia.”

Galois Capital Survey Sparks ETH2 Delay and Chain Split Discussions

In addition to the large number of Twitter discussions talking about The Merge being delayed, the crypto hedge fund Galois Capital has shared a survey that asks whether people think Ethereum will split into two chains after The Merge is implemented. 53.7% of the survey’s respondents said The Merge will go smoothly but 33.1% thought the chain could split. If it did split there would be a PoW and PoS token even though a PoW version of ETH already exists.

The Ethereum Classic (ETC) network was introduced after the fork in 2016 to remedy the DAO hack and the Galois Capital survey shows that 51.8% of the respondents think ETH miners will transition to ETC.

The Galois Capital survey also asked if there was a non-trivial chance stablecoin company Tether would support a PoW token that splits away from the PoS ETH network. However, Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino said on Sunday that Tether plans “to support ETH2.” Ardoino also stressed that “support of ETH2 will be seamless” and he added:

It’s not about what I/we prefer between PoW/PoS. Stablecoins should act responsibly and avoid disruption for users. Especially for [decentralized finance] it’s really delicate.

Tags in this story
blockchain split, Chain Split, decentralized finance, DeFi, Delay, Delay The Merge, ETC, Ethereum Classic, Galois Capital, Galois Capital survey, Goelri, Merge Delay, Merge Fork, Paolo Ardoino, PoS, PoW, Proof of Work, Proof-of-Stake, Sepolia, Stablecoin, technology, Tether, Tether CTO, The Merge, Upgrade, USDT

What do you think about the recent discussions revolving around The Merge upgrade and the questions about the possibility of Ethereum splitting into two chains? Do you think The Merge will be delayed or have issues when the upgrade is implemented? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Jamie Redman

Jamie Redman is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News and a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open-source code, and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 5,700 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.

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