From what I can see ETH hashrate has been fairly stable over the past couple of months, at least based on anecdotal earnings of my meager 2 cards mining. It did go up a bit, but not a whole bunch.
Latest news is that merge could happen as early as end of August if there are no problems. As always, take it with a grain of salt since PoS has been years in the making and been delayed numerous times already. I do think a lot of people are in denial about merge, they must think the gravy train is going to go forever. To be honest smart time to sell off your equipment was couple of months ago when used cards were still fetching 2x MSRP. It's a bit too late now, but still better now than later. PoS is coming, and when it comes it'll be a real shock to the entire mining industry, entire swaths of mining rigs are going to become essentially worthless. I'm a little sad I won't be able to mine, but maybe I'll pick up cheap 6800xt or maybe newly released 7700xt if prices are right.