After many years of waiting, Ethereum is ready to become a full-fledged proof-of-concept (PoS) blockchain. In addition to Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency, Ether (ETH), several other tokens have not only seen a significant increase in valuation, but may continue to overtake ETH after the merger.
Ethereum is close to merging
The leading smart contract platform completed the last of its three public test networks, called Goerli, on August 11. Therefore, there should be no delay in the Ethereum merger, which is expected on September 19.
The price of ether jumped 5% to around $1,950, the highest level in two months, after Goerli’s update. Meanwhile, several crypto assets that could benefit from a successful merger have seen upward and even better moves than ETH over the past month.
Will these tokens continue to outperform ETH price in September? Let’s take a closer look.
Lido DAO (LDO)
Merge will replace the army of Ethereum miners with validators, who will face 32 ETH as an economic stake.
This large capital disbursement requirement has opened up opportunities for intermediaries, ie platforms that collect Ether from underfunded miners and pool the proceeds to become collectors of Ethereum blockchains. Lido DAO is one of them.
Also read: Is it foolish to expect a huge rise in the price of Ethereum before and after the merger?
Lido DAO is the first betting service in terms of value locked in the official Merge smart contract. Notably, it paid 4.15 million ETH into the Eth2 contract, ahead of Coinbase, which invested around 1.55 million ETH on behalf of its customers.
A successful merger could increase demand for Lido DAO’s services.
After that, it could be bullish for the platform’s official governance token, LDO, whose value had already increased by more than 200% since July 14, when Ethereum first announced the probability of in its PoS blockchain in September.
Therefore, LDO is one of the major crypto assets that could benefit the most from a successful Ethereum to PoS transition.
Ethereum Classic (ETC)
Ethereum Classic (ETC) is another asset that has caught the attention of the bulls in recent weeks. This is mainly due to its potential to provide a haven for miners leaving the Ethereum network.
As Ethereum Classic is the split blockchain that resulted from a controversial hard fork in 2016, it has all the technical qualities of the current Ethereum proof-of-concept (PoW) network, making it a natural haven for ETH miners.
Like LDO, ETC has also increased by more than 200% since the launch of the Ethereum merger was announced on July 14th. Therefore, it is likely to continue its uptrend before and after the merger.
hope (OP)
Hope is an Ethereum rolling service. In other words, it aggregates data from bulk transactions outside the blockchain in batches and sends the results back to the Ethereum mainnet when a consensus is reached.
The so-called Layer 2 solution could take advantage of Ethereum’s roadmap aimed at post-merger roll-up. Interestingly, OP, Optimism’s governance token, has grown by almost 250% since the merger date was announced.
The prospect of Ethereum applying Optimism to its post-merger network could be a bullish catalyst for OP price.
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