Coinbase has revealed that it plans to evaluate any potential fork arising from the upcoming Ethereum upgrade known as The Merge. In a recently updated blog post, Coinbase said that if a new Ethereum proof-of-work (PoW) token is created, it “will be scrutinized with the same rigor as any other listed asset” on the company’s stock exchange.
Coinbase communicates on the possibility of an Ethereum Fork arising after the merger
The merge is imminent and data shows that it will happen in about 16 days. Essentially, the merge is Ethereum’s plan to move from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm to a new proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus scheme. Now, despite the fact that a PoW network similar to ETH already exists in Ethereum Classic, there has been talk of creating a new PoW fork when the merger is implemented.
The proposal for ETH PoW fork has gained interest in the market as a number of crypto exchanges have created versions of IOU tokens called ETHW. ETHW is changing hands for $49 and is up nearly 5% in the past 24 hours. Last week, on August 25, Coinbase updated a blog post originally published on August 16. The latest update concerns the possibility of an ETH Fork of PoW resulting from the Merger.
The Coinbase article explains how Coinbase plans to halt any Ethereum or ERC20-based transactions during the Merger. The recent update says: “If an ETH PoW fork occurs as a result of The Merge, that asset will be scrutinized with the same rigor as any other asset listed on our exchange.“Coinbase also has tweeted about the update on Twitter the same day.
Coinbase is committed to fully supporting the upgraded Ethereum PoS chain following The Merge.
– Coinbase Assets (@CoinbaseAssets) August 25, 2022
“At Coinbase, our goal is to list every asset that is legal and safe to list“, the exchange tweeted. “We will evaluate any ETH fork tokens after the merger will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis in accordance with our standard asset listing policy. Rest assured, all potential Ethereum fork tokens, including PoW forks, will be subject to the same strict listing review process applied to any other asset listed on our exchange “, Coinbase added.
It is well known that exchanges can and will take as long as they want to list forked assets and some trading platforms have never offered support for specific crypto forks. Coinbase made similar decisions during the Ethereum Classic and Bitcoin Cash forks. Cryptocurrency veterans also know that holding assets that are susceptible to forks in a non-conservative manner is the best way to ensure that you will get a forked crypto asset, should a blockchain split occur.