After months of waiting, the Ethereum merge is finally here, and investors are looking forward to a pump in the coming days and weeks. The expectation is that Ethereum could trigger another market rally and help the broader cryptocurrency market come out of the current bear run.
Such prospects are not far-fetched. In August 2021, after the hard fork that made Ethereum deflationary, ETH gained momentum, and by September, the rest of the market had caught up. What followed was a rally that saw most cryptocurrencies hit new highs by November 2021.
That said, if Ethereum pumps, a number of cryptocurrencies hold the potential to outperform it. That’s because they are cheaper – accessible to small investors – and have many other factors supporting their potential rally.
If you are an investor looking to make the most of the market in the short term, below are three cryptocurrencies to watch immediately after the Ethereum merge.
Ethereum Classic (ETC)
Ethereum Classic (ETC) was pumped a few weeks ago, and though it has eased up, it still holds a lot of potential short term. That’s because once the Ethereum merge is complete, miners will be left with equipment that still needs to remain profitable for it not to go obsolete. This was the reason behind the Ethereum Classic pump after Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin urged miners to look to ETC.
As the shift to ETC by miners starts to happen at scale, investors can expect a pump in the price and possibly the resurge of ETC as a top cryptocurrency to invest in for the long term.
The Graph (GRT)
Ethereum is the most widely used blockchain for smart contracts. That’s despite its many weaknesses, especially in costs and scalability. It means that developers value the Ethereum network regardless of the costs. In essence, once the merge is complete, there could be a surge in the usage of the Ethereum network. This places networks that make using the Ethereum blockchain easier to use and a lot more valuable.
The Graph (GRT) is one of the cryptocurrencies that make using Ethereum easier. It is used for querying data on the Ethereum blockchain. As Ethereum adoption grows, investors will find this network much more valuable.
Adoption and the fact that it is a cheap cryptocurrency puts it at the forefront of cryptocurrencies that could go parabolic after the merge.
Polygon (MATIC)
With The Merge, Ethereum transactions will mainly be handled by layer-2 solutions. The goal is to take the load off the mainnet, thereby cutting gas fees and increasing transaction speeds. One of the layer-2 solutions set to benefit the most is Polygon (MATIC).
Polygon already has a considerable number of projects running on top of it. This gives it an edge over other Ethereum L2s. Most importantly, Polygon recently introduced ZkRollups for maximum security and also implemented deflationary tokenomics. These two factors make Polygon higher attractive to investors and could see it emerge as one of the best performing cryptocurrencies after the merge.