The Merge target draws extremely near, people are going to experience what has been advertised since 2021 in the most practical way. As <a href="https://www.builder.news/" alt="Builder.news" title="Builder.news" target="_blank" rel="" class="">Builder.news</a> has always reported, The Merge is Ethereum's most significant upgrade since its launch in 2015 and has a fixed activation date (probably any date from 10 to 20 September). This is the official milestone to end the ETH mining process with the current energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW) mechanism, replacing it with a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) model that is expected to improve capabilities to be more expandable and more than 99% eco-friendly. We all know that it will affect on an extremely large scale, where NFTs (most are ETH-based) are no exceptions. People might have thousands of questions about whether NFTs are harshly affected by the upgrade. Let’s figure out the answers to the following questions.<img src="https://cdn.builder.news/news/11ed2e9786363885a8e6023f659fee92.jpg" alt="The Merge impact on NFTs" title="The Merge impact on NFTs" width="600" height="334"><h2>Question 1: What happens to the possessed NFTs?</h2>The straightforward reply is probably nothing. They'll still be in your wallet and should continue to work normally in Dapps and on marketplaces. In other words, if all goes as planned, the recently improved mainnet for Ethereum should work just fine with Ethereum’s NFTs. NFT investors don't need to take any action in order to get ready for The Merge cause their assets are well-included in the bigger plan. The Merge will help to facilitate transactions at a faster pace and at less cost which NFTs are also taking advantage of. For example, NFTs on OpenSea can be bought in a minute or two without common burdens causing gas fees to increase.“Users should expect that their NFTs will safely reside on the new Ethereum chain along with their ETH tokens” confirmed Johnna Powell, NFT co-head at Ethereum-centric software company, ConsenSys.However, in the bigger picture, the relationship between NFTs and <a href="https://www.builder.news/crypto-insights/the-merge-a-pivotal-event-for-ethereum" alt="The Merge" title="The Merge: A pivotal event for Ethereum" target="_blank" rel="" class="">The Merge</a> can be more complicated than that since it is not only about investors’ in-wallet digital assets. It poses more questions that need to be answered.<h2>Question 2: What happens to possessed NFTs after many versions of the forked chain appear?</h2>Blockchain works efficiently on consensus, when there are disagreements between parties, forks will appear. This led to the next problem NFTs need to face when The Merge fully takes effect. Numbers of community-led forks of Ethereum will definitely appear when Ethereum communities keep grouping themselves into chains that either follow the former PoW mechanism (recently known as ETHPOW) or the PoS mechanism. As a result, the NFTs of Ethereum will be duplicated once ETHPOW and any other forks emerge from the Ethereum mainnet. NFT, commonly known as blockchainized token, can serve as a document of ownership for digital goods including works of art and collectibles. The same artwork or material will therefore be referenced twice in a split Ethereum chain if the NFTs were purchased before The Merge. These two versions of NFTs will simultaneously picture the same information such as images, music, … that users already have before.<img src="https://cdn.builder.news/news/11ed2e9786365ac0a8e6023f659fee92.jpg" alt="Blockchain" title="Blockchain" width="600" height="400">If an NFT exchange simultaneously supports both PoW and PoS chains, confusion is bound to happen. Less experienced users who do not know the difference between main chains and split PoW chains can buy NFTs on the PoW chain at an exorbitant price while the new “original” version is the NFTs on the PoS chain. Therefore, due to the appearance of duplicate NFTs, misunderstandings, and fraud may easy to arise.&gt;&gt;&gt; Check out:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.builder.news/crypto-insights/how-the-merge-affects-investors-etIkc" alt="How The Merge affects investors?" title="How The Merge affects investors?" target="_blank" rel="" class="">How The Merge affects investors?</a><h2>Question 3: Will “replay attacks” happen to possessed NFTs?</h2>When two split cryptocurrencies let transactions be legitimate on both chains, a replay attack may take place. That’s why NFTs investors must concern about the replay attack post The Merge where a transaction executed on the proof-of-work split may later be "replayed" on the proof-of-stake Ethereum mainnet.It might sound hard to understand, but let’s take the CryptoPunks NFT collection as an example. A CryptoPunks NFT owner may sell the duplicated copy on the PoW chain, but if the ID transaction were to be "replayed" by an evildoer on the merged PoS chain, the seller might also lose the original copy on that chain. This scenario is the worst to happen.<img src="https://cdn.builder.news/news/11ed2e978636733fa8e6023f659fee92.jpg" alt="Blockchain" title="Blockchain" width="600" height="400">This kind of attack can only happen when two chains, ETHPOW and Ethereum for example, use the same chain ID. Therefore, it is true to say that investors don’t have to be nervous because there are forked chains that use different transaction IDs like what the most visible PoW forked chained - ETHPOW has confirmed. In fact, Ethereum developer Marius Van Der Wijden and ETHPOW co-founder Chandler Guo confirmed that the two chains will use different identifiers, so replay attacks on NFTs are unlikely to happen.On the other hand, we cannot neglect the case when there is a variety of forked chains born and some of them implement the same identifiers for transactions. Therefore, investors need to be alerted of the replay attack right now, before The Merge is fully implemented.&gt;&gt;&gt; Related:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.builder.news/crypto-insights/which-protocols-benefit-from-the-merge-9s9S0" alt="Which protocols benefit from The Merge?" title="Which protocols benefit from The Merge?" target="_blank" rel="" class="">Which protocols benefit from The Merge?</a><h2>Question 4: How to prevent “replay attacks” on the possessed NFTs?</h2><blockquote class="">“The best way to protect against replay attacks is to not interact at all with the [PoW] chain… If you do not interact with the chain, you don’t need to do anything and won’t have to worry about replay attacks”Johnna PowellNFT co-head at ConsenSys</blockquote>This is the most simple way to avoid replay attacks. However, if investors still want to interact with forked chains, it is still impossible but has to be done in the right way.<img src="https://cdn.builder.news/news/11ed2e9786368086a8e6023f659fee92.jpg" alt="NFTs" title="NFTs" width="600" height="400"><ul><li>Quickly utilize all the nonces on the PoS chain before making more transactions on the PoW chain (because then the transactions on the PoW chain will use the same nonces as the nonces we used on the original PoS chain earlier). By doing so, the hacker will not be able to copy the transactions from the PoW chain to the PoS chain because we have used all of the nonces.</li><li>On the PoS chain, transfer all assets from the current wallet to a new wallet. Hackers will not be able to copy transactions from the <a href="https://www.builder.news/crypto-insights/pow-compared-with-pos" alt="PoW compared with PoS" title="PoW compared with PoS - What solution is optimal?" target="_blank" rel="" class="">PoW chain to the PoS chain</a> because there’s no asset left on the old wallet.</li><li>Make transactions on the PoW chain with such an extremely low gas fee that the hacked transaction cannot be processed because there is not enough gas before it can reach the PoS chain.</li></ul><h2>Question 5: What if possessed NFTs are copied in forked chains?</h2>Due to the ETHPOW chain and other forked chains, duplicate NFTs will exist anyway, and there may be some uncertainty as to which assets are "legitimate”. Project developers and marketplaces demonstrate that they will only accept Ethereum's unified mainnet as legitimate, and that forked copies will remain unofficial copies. Therefore, the primary NFTs are still able to maintain their values no matter how many duplicates are generated.<iframe width="550" height="400" src="data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Cblockquote%20class%3D%22twitter-tweet%22%3E%3Cp%20lang%3D%22en%22%20dir%3D%22ltr%22%3EThe%20Ethereum%20network%20is%20gearing%20up%20for%20the%20merge%20mid%20September.%20In%20line%20with%20the%20broader%20Ethereum%20community%2C%20in%20the%20event%20of%20a%20viable%20PoW%20fork%2C%20Yuga%20intends%20to%20only%20recognize%20NFTs%20on%20the%20PoS%20ETH%20chain%20as%20subject%20to%20the%20relevant%20NFT%20license%20and%20eligible%20for%20Yuga-offered%20utility%3C/p%3E%26mdash%3B%20Yuga%20Labs%20%28@yugalabs%29%20%3Ca%20href%3D%22https%3A//twitter.com/yugalabs/status/1560035176562016262%3Fref_src%3Dtwsrc%255Etfw%22%3EAugust%2017%2C%202022%3C/a%3E%3C/blockquote%3E%0A%3Cscript%20async%20src%3D%22https%3A//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js%22%20charset%3D%22utf-8%22%3E%3C/script%3E%0A"></iframe><iframe width="550" height="400" src="data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Cblockquote%20class%3D%22twitter-tweet%22%3E%3Cp%20lang%3D%22en%22%20dir%3D%22ltr%22%3E2/%20First%2C%20and%20most%20importantly%2C%20we%20are%20committed%20to%20solely%20supporting%20NFTs%20on%20the%20upgraded%20Ethereum%20PoS%20chain.%3C/p%3E%26mdash%3B%20OpenSea%20%28@opensea%29%20%3Ca%20href%3D%22https%3A//twitter.com/opensea/status/1565116435348590593%3Fref_src%3Dtwsrc%255Etfw%22%3EAugust%2031%2C%202022%3C/a%3E%3C/blockquote%3E%0A%3Cscript%20async%20src%3D%22https%3A//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js%22%20charset%3D%22utf-8%22%3E%3C/script%3E%0A"></iframe>To put it another way, Ethereum developers think that after The Merge, <a href="https://www.builder.news/sub-category/nft" alt="NFTs insights" title="NFTs insights on Builder.news" target="_blank" rel="" class="">NFTs</a> will continue to operate normally, that any momentum around duplicate NFTs on split chains would be fleeting, and that big markets and authors won't even acknowledge official copies on such forked networks.Of course, there is no assurance that everything will proceed as expected. It's possible that The Merge could experience technical difficulties or there will be a lot of interest in duplicate NFTs, which might cause confusion and fraud to explode. Being informed, steering clear of potentially dangerous contacts, and waiting for any problems to be rectified may be the best strategy for NFT collectors in the upcoming time.<div class="pr-block-special">Disclaimer: This article is intended for and only to be used for reference purposes only. No such information provided constitutes advice or a recommendation that any investment or trading strategy is suitable for any specific name.</div>

Whether NFTs are vastly affected after The Merge?

5 questions about The Merge impact on NFTs