This is definitely not a clickbait headline

Seriously, why did you click this? Did you think I had the answers? Do you think anybody does?

Nobody has any idea what’s going to happen in a matter of hours, because nothing like this has ever been done before.

Ethereum switching from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake is as if a submarine decided to switch from diesel to nuclear power . . . while running . . . a thousand feet below the surface . . . while being chased.

Ethereum wants to do it with no downtime. Solana has downtime twice a month for no reason.

So when someone says that the Merge could “break the Internet,” you should probably check to see in which way. Because there are also smart people who think throwing that switch is a bad idea, either because of complexity or centralization.

Says someone who knows about losing proof of work.

Ethereum’s merge is a black swan the size of a pterodactyl, so anyone who says they know what’s going to happen in the post-Merge world is full of it.

Except me, of course.

pictured: me, watching my LUNA bags immolate in real time

These coins, I believe, will do well short-, medium- and long-term regardless of how well ETH merges. As always: I Am Not A Financial Advisor™, and I don’t know your specific investment needs. I have owned all of these coins at some point, own a few of them now, and will likely own several of them whenever you’re reading this. Not enough to matter.

The first coin I think will do well, not surprisingly, is . . .

Bitcoin (BTC)

. . . yup. Ethereum is merging, so buy Bitcoin.

I don’t want any more weight in ETH. Neither should you, unless you think it will go exponentially parabolic the instant the Merge merges.

Despite the fact that the Merge is pushing forward, the brains behind Ethereum seem hard at work at tamping down the rampant speculation that makes Arthur Hayes think ether will hit Five Ducking Digits. Faster transactions? Lower gas fees? Double or even triple the staking yields? Ethereum.org is blasting ice-cold nopium at all three.

Without all the out-of-control hype, Ethereum 2.0 is beginning to look like . . . Ethereum 1.0. Just running a little less energy-intensively. Sure, it’s suddenly ESG-friendly, for those who are into that sort of thing. But unless the whole world goes Black Friday, there’s no real time pressure — just noise.

Everybody who wants in is already in: ETH has doubled in the last three months. And when long-term HODLers reap their profits in alts, they plow it right back into the king crypto.

Besides, the Bitcoin vs. Ethereum rivalry is so weirdly factional. Like if there were an enormous rivalry between Applebee’s and McDonald’s. They offer two different things, even more so after Ethereum goes to proof-of-stake. ETH’s gain is not necessarily BTC’s loss.

That said, if PoS does turn out to be a . . . well, p.o.s. for the #2, that would actually be great for Bitcoin.

Polygon (MATIC)

Since we’ve now been assured that the Merge will not be hastening transactions or capping gas fees, that’s great news for the layer-2 chains that function like an express lane for Ethereum. Of those, Polygon has not only the most traffic, but is generating all sorts of spinoff value unrelated to ETH, including a Starbucks-themed metaverse.

Scoff all you want, but Starbucks was one of the first players in the app loyalty game. Loyalty points are a way for people who’ve grown up in web2 (or web1) to understand cryptocurrencies. Earning a daily metavers-ucino is how they’ll understand NFTs.

This doesn’t even mention Polygon ID (which allows users to prove credentials without doxxing themselves) and Avail (which allows any blockchain to scale itself up by outsourcing its transaction data off its own chain).

MATIC has positioned itself incredibly well regardless of how the Merge goes down. Or up.

Polkadot (DOT)

The only thing Ethereum failed to do by transitioning to proof-of-stake was merge fast enough. This allowed a cavalcade of other non-PoW layer-1 blockchains to get toeholds in the space, like Cardano (ADA), founded by former Ethereum big fish Charles Hoskinson. But it’s unlikely that any of them will live up to their billing as “Ethereum-killers,” which means the future will likely not be a monopoly, but rather . . . whatever the opposite of a monopoly is. A polypoly.

Wiktionary says it’s a word, so that means I’m right, but not original.

If the future is multichain, there will need to be interoperability, and Polkadot is in that niche. DOT also has Ethereal bloodlines, with former ETH CTO Gavin Wood cofounding the project and authoring the white paper.

But Polkadot is also making fat stacks by offering bespoke parachains to high bidders, allowing teams to build their own networks.

Cosmos is another blockchain that’s doing a lot of these same things, but the difference is that ATOM has detonated to double its recent lows and DOT . . . hasn’t.

A giraffe vs. a pondskipper.

I like DOT to play catch-up.

Ethereum Classic (ETC)

Question: where are all the ether miners are going to go when there’s no more ether left to mine? And that’s assuming the Merge works. If it bombs, users may abandon ship entirely and head toward the unforked original Ethereum blockchain.

I’m absolutely not the first person to think this one up, either. ETC sat at its low of $12.50 on June 18 and rocketed up to $45.75 by August 13 before settling back under $40 as of this writing.

But the move might not be done yet: TradingView’s technical analysis still rates ETC a buy on a 1-month timeframe:

And here I will act like I know what that means.

And finally:

Litecoin (LTC)

We’ve already discussed how proof-of-work chains like Bitcoin stand to gain if Ethereum’s transition falters in any way, which would also benefit the PoW Litecoin. But if the Merge works, pressure will continue mounting on other PoW networks to make their own switch to become less energy-intensive.

Bitcoin never will. The medium is the message. Proof of work and Bitcoin are permanently fused. It simply does not matter how much societal pressure will be applied to the Bitcoin community, nor how many busybody politicians want to ban it. (I would advise them to examine how well, historically, prohibitions against things like alcohol, drugs, gambling and guns have worked, but if they thought about that they wouldn’t be trying to ban proof-of-work cryptocurrencies . . . or abortion or 32-ounce soft drinks.)

However . . . Litecoin could probably be so levered. Their raison d’être has always been a less clunky and faster-moving version of Bitcoin — it’s literally in their name. Failing an all-out move to proof-of-stake, other potential investors who factor ESG into their futures might simply see ETH as green energy and LTC like a clean-burning natural gas where Bitcoin is coal.

So, what’s next?

I told you, I don’t know, and neither does anybody else.

wen surge?