Compound Founder On ‘What May Go Wrong’ With Ethereum Merge For Investors

Robert Leshner, founder of Compound Finance and investor at Robot Ventures, has noted a few things regarding The Merge. The Merge is slated to happen mid-September, and the hype around it is surreal.

As a result, several investors have taken to staking up ETH tokens in preparation. Nonetheless, in a thread of tweets, Leshner proffered some advice to the community, as The Merge draws closer.

Robert Leshner advised investors not to fall for scams in desperation

Leshner first acknowledged the importance of the event. According to him, some proponents already believe The Merge to be the most meaningful event in the space in half a decade. This is not far from the truth, considering the impact the build-up to the Merge has had on ETH lately.

“First things first, don’t fall for scams,” Leshner said. A lot of individuals within the crypto community do not have ample knowledge of The Merge. This is especially true for early investors. Leshner noted that people tend to question things less when uncertainty abounds. With The Merge promising a plethora of benefits, FUD could prompt some investors to fall for scams. “Be extra frosty about what you read, click and sign,” he said.

Secondly, Leshner advised investors against applying too much leverage on contracts due to the craze. He also asked investors not to take too much risk or do something stupid with their portfolios. With the hype comes recklessness, and a lot of traders may take more risk than is necessary.

Proper custody is important as The Merge approaches

Going forward, Leshner raised the significant point of trustworthy custodians. Considering recent issues with crypto firms pausing withdrawals, and some suffering hacks; this is especially important. As investors hoard their tokens, awaiting promising price actions, it is important to store these assets properly. According to Leshner, this could be “on an exchange you trust or a hardware wallet you control.”

Conclusively, Leshner talked about upcoming ETH forks post-Merge. “Be extra careful about signing transactions on a forked chain,” he said. He highlighted the fact that one private key can work on both the ETH blockchain and a forked chain. As a consequence, miners who own forked chains could exploit investors.

The Ethereum Merge is only a few weeks away, as recent announcements moved it closer. On August 11, the tentative Total Terminal Difficulty was announced to be 58,750,000,000,000,000,000,000 which would occur on September 15 or 16. The ETH development team has stated the possibility of a change to the TTD or date.