FTX to halt blockchain transfers of secondary chains for ETH as Merge approaches

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX announced It will temporarily freeze trading Ether(ETH) on multiple blockchains, as the Ethereum Merge draws near.

The halt will last until The Merge is completed as a way of taking extra precautionary measures to safeguard investors’ funds during the Ethereum upgrade.

After the Merge Ethereum blockchain will slowly switch from a Proof of Work consensus mechanism to a Proof of Stake consensus mechanism.

FTX:

“As the ETH merge approaches, FTX will temporarily disable blockchain transfers of secondary chains for ETH to make sure that settlement is clean; the main chain ETH will stay active for longer.”

FTX’s move comes despite Ethereum developers’ assurance that the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) is what will allow the Merge to switch to PoS with no downtime. TTD will facilitate the transition based the total amount of mining power used to create the new chain.

The Merge will not lower gas costs

Depsite switching between PoW, which can be more expensive, and PoS, which can be considered cheaper, is not possible according to the Ethereum Foundation.

The Ethereum Foundation has issued the following announcement:

“Gas fees are a product of network demand relative to the network’s capacity. The Merge deprecates the use of Proof-of-Work, transitioning to Proof-of-Stake for consensus, but does not significantly change any parameters that directly influence network capacity or throughout.”