Cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex will support a potential Proof-of-Work (PoW) fork of Ethereum after the merger of the core network with Beacon Chain, scheduled for September 2022.
📢 The Ethereum Merge is expected to be in September 2022. Poloniex was the world’s first exchange to list #ETH and now the first one to support potential forking of ETH with listing of two potential forked ETH tokens: #ETHS & #ETHW.https://t.co/QipYETT5Rq
— Poloniex Exchange (@Poloniex) August 4, 2022
According to a press release, the platform will launch an interface for exchanging ETH for ETHS/ETHW on 8 August. Potential forked tokens will also be allowed to be exchanged in pairs with each other. The offer will be valid until the update is activated on the main Ethereum network.
Deposits and withdrawals in ETHS and ETHW will not be available. De facto, the tokens represent digital options on the native assets of one of the chains.
The company stressed that it will “adapt the offering to the latest market trends” over time. Exchange officials also noted that it is still unknown what the Ethereum network hardforward will look like.
In late July, Chinese miner and Ethereum Classic supporter Chandler Guo said he was recruiting a group of developers to support a PoW fork of Ethereum after The Merge. The latter involves the network switching to the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm.
The community is fairly high on the likelihood of a fork after the Ethereum network upgrade. According to a Twitter poll by hedge fund Galois Capital, a third of respondents believe a PoW-based ETH1 blockchain will emerge as part of the process.
Tron founder and Poloniex owner Justin Sun revealed that the exchange has more than 1 million ETH on its balance sheet. If the fork is successful, it will transfer some PoW-based tokens to “the ETHW community and developers to build the Ethereum ecosystem”.
According to Sun, the PoW mechanism is “key to the growth of the Ethereum ecosystem”, so Poloniex and he personally stand ready to support the community.
As a reminder, Ethereum developers will migrate the Goerli testnet to the PoS algorithm by August 12.
