The Ethereum blockchain merge is expected on September 15th around 05:05 UTC. This is a milestone that marks a complete transition towards Proof-of-Stake (PoS) for Ethereum, and eliminates the need for energy-intensive mining. 99.9% estimated compared to Proof of Work (PoW).
Some miners are even gearing up for a hard fork that will allow them to continue using PoW consensus. Forked coins have proven lucrative in the past. For example, holders of Ethereum (ETH) had an amount equal to that of Ethereum Classic (ETC) when it was forked in 2016.
In the event of a new hard fork, in which the Ethereum blockchain will split into two separate networks, users holding ETH on-chain will have an equal balance of ETHW on the forked chain. This will be an additional token; A completely different asset than ETH.
For ETH holders using hard wallets, the question is more straightforward: what will happen to your tokens after a fork merge? We have collated some of the answers to this question, so that in the coming hours, you do not get caught or caught in any scam.
In fact, most hard wallet providers are taking the same approach: monitor adoption across the new chain as well as the fork chain before adding any support for ETHPoW. Also, they alert that users do not need to take any action during the upgrade.
Charles Guillemette, CTO of security hard wallet Ledger, explained to Cointelegraph that, “in the event of a fork, the first thing everyone should know is that any assets a user currently holds on the mainnet are secure,” adding that the company “ETH on day one will not support Proof of Work forks, as there are many technical aspects that need to be evaluated to ensure that it is safe for users, chief among them ensuring that the new chain is secure. “
Similarly, Trezor’s bitcoin analyst Joseph Tetek stated that “the Trezor suite will not support interactions with pre-merge proof of work coins after the merge, but users will still be able to access their Trezor with third-party interfaces such as MetaMask.” Can. Older version of the blockchain.”
Swiss wallet provider Tangeum also has no plans to support the PoW fork. “Unless we are sure of the seriousness of the supporters of this hard fork, we are not ready to show our customers support for the project”, said CTO, Andrey Lazutkin.
ETH holders who use a non-custodial wallet and control their private keys will have faster access to both sets of coins (ETHW and ETH). Private key owners can collect forked coins using MetaMask to connect the PoW network to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) wallet.
Crypto wallet companies also warn users to be extra careful during and after network upgrades. “Scammers are especially active during major network upgrades. Don’t get involved with anyone who claims you need to take immediate steps to protect your coins,” warns Tetec.
