There are some non-financial arguments for continuing the proof-of-work chain as âETH PoWâ (or whatever they ultimately decide to call it, because âETH PoWâ frankly stinks). Above all, rational or not, there will be some uncertainty about the stability of the new Ethereum chain after the Merge. If something goes truly catastrophically bad with the Merge, there is some chance users, apps and even assets (see below) will migrate back to the PoW chain. In this scenario, positions on the âoldâ chain could act as something akin to insurance.
