What the ETH!

ETH Merge: CoinGecko co-founder shares strategy for forked tokens

Some of the advice looks like will produce some very wild swings in price.

To maximize the amount that holders can get, the [CoinGecko] executive [Bobby Ong] also advised traders to bridge their tokens back to the ETH mainnet, unwrap their Wrapped Ether (wETH) and remove their ETH liquidity from decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.

Ethereum Merge to 'swamp' other coins with miners — Mining CEO

74% of Ethereum nodes ‘Merge ready’ ahead of Bellatrix upgrade

The warning for those who hold a few ETH is to be very careful that the resulting confusion - and promises of PoW forks - may lead to fake airdrops. NEVER give anyone your private keys.

The Merge Q&A: A triumph for Ethereum — or a disaster waiting to happen?

And this is what I've always found laughable about Ethereum going all Proof of Stake.

Just like Bitcoin, the network currently uses a Proof-of-Work consensus model to secure the blockchain. This means that crypto miners are running machines to crunch numbers in an attempt to validate transactions and earn ETH rewards. It requires a lot of energy to run — and flies in the face of decentralization because of how it's controlled by a few larger, more sophisticated mining operations. [my italics]

Yes...

Well, after the Merge, we should see increased security through decentralizing the network and relying on a broader pool of validators. The barrier to entry is dramatically lowered when compared with mining.

And...

There is an argument that the Merge could actually reduce security and cause further centralization because there are a few large players involved in staking.

Bingo! This is exactly what will happen. Collusion of miners will be replaced by collusion of validators. Great leap forward!

So, I have to assume this is what the Ethereum Foundation actually want to do - this is a way for ETH to become a stock. It will also be paraded as a climate-scam-crypto, bowing to the green con. This could even lead to the flippening of ETH into the top spot. BTC is treading water, waiting to allow this to happen. Both BTC and ETH have derivatives. Wag the dog.