As the long awaited Merge of Ethereum’s Proof of Work and Proof of Stake blockchains will occur soon, many scams are appearing. Double Your ETH Scams
Some scams offer to double your ETH in the merge by suggesting the merge can double your ETH, if they hold your ETH and move it on and off the blockchain at the right time. I call it the Double your ETH timing scam.
Others offer to double your ETH in the proposed Fork planned by a developer/ ETH miner. You just need to send it to their wallet where it doubles, and they send you double your ETH back. It is ironic that this new token should be airdropped to you without you moving your ETH to someone else’s wallet. I call it the Double your your ETH Fork Scam.
Some offer to safeguard your ETH off chain in their wallet during this time of uncertainty and promise you high interest. I call it the high interest wallet transfer scam.
Not your keys, not your Ethereum
The underlying issue with most of these scams is losing control of your ETH by sending it to a strangers wallet. This breaks one of the most important aspect of cryptocurrency security, your crypto in your wallet, protected by your keys.
It never ceases to amaze me that double your crypto scams continue to thrive, because people continue to think that someone can magically double your crypto. People knowing suspend their logic and reason in the face of 100% gains.
It also is unfortunate that in the presence of lots of reliable information from the Ethereum Foundation, people rely on Ads on Facebook and YouTube to make investment decisions.
It is understandable that we can’t know everything, but I hope investors eventually learn to use reliable sources for their information.
Take Home Lessons
The Merge isn’t going to double your money.
The Ethereum fork isn’t going to double your ETH, it will give you a new token, of unclear value, currently valued on futures markets at 30-35 dollars a token.
But those are guesses at market value, so no one knows what the real market price will be, but because many people see it as free money and are willing to speculate that it’s post merge value will pump, you may see a post merge pump and possible dump.
You can be sure that many small investors will buy into the pump and lose money in the dump.
I think that token will be like a lottery, few will make a lot of money, but most will lose most of their investment.
It’s value is certainly no where near the current 1500 dollar value of ETH, and definitely not worth risking your ETH.
And remember that it should be airdropped to you without you moving your ETH to someone else’s wallet.
Defi Projects
One move that is potentially advantageous is to remove your ETH from Liquidity Pools and other similar arrangements and store it offline in a hardware wallet during the actual merge.
This is proposed by some investors as a hedge against any merge related glitches or unexpected vulnerabilities. And I think this is reasonable to consider.
However if everyone does this, there maybe one day of high apr returns in theory. But I suspect most investors won’t move their ETH.
What scams have you seen or heard of?
What precautions are you taking for the ETH merge?
See my next article on the Ethereum POW Token here
