As the Ethereum merger date approaches, conversations around the future of Ethereum are becoming increasingly heated. Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, is becoming one of the most influential figures to publicly support Ethereum hard forks.
Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, has lashed out at Ethereum hard fork supporters, including Sun. He stated that these supporters are exchange owners looking to make a quick buck.
(2/2) If the hard fork succeeds, everyone on ethereum will get ethw tokens, without any pre-mining. Vitalik will get exactly the same proportion of ethw as I and everyone do. I’m only supporting pow should exist as a consensus mechanism for ethereum after merge.
– H.E. Justin Sun🌞🇬🇩 (@justinsuntron) August 8, 2022
Justin Sun took to Twitter to dispute Vitalik’s claims. He claims that his exchange, Poloniex, does not take any fees for ETHW or ETHS transactions. He claims that his support is solely for the public good.
Vitalik and EF’s contribution to Etheruem is huge. After merge phase is over, Vitalik and EF still lead the development of Etheruem and @Poloniex will continue to support Etheruem projects. Personally, I have great respect for their work!
– H.E. Justin Sun🌞🇬🇩 (@justinsuntron) August 8, 2022
The back and forth around the Ethereum merger
The Merge is replacing the miners currently required by the Proof-of-Work with validators. As a result, the next move by the miners involved has become a topic of speculation. Buterin called on PoW supporters and miners to support the Ethereum Classic blockchain.
However, concerns about hard forks in Ethereum after the merger have been a source of worry. Chandler Guoan influential Chinese miner, revealed his intention to fork ETH.
i fork ethereum once,i will fork it again! https://t.co/3DdlZ3zMz9
– Chandler Guo (@ChandlerGuo) July 27, 2022
Justin Sun has made the decision to support any potential fork. Poloniex, Sun’s exchange, now lists ETHW and ETHS. The exchange also allows any ETH holder to exchange their tokens for ETHS or ETHW.
Sun says he appreciates the work of the Ethereum Foundation and Vitalik. However, he argues that proof of work should exist as a consensus mechanism even after the merger.
What will miners do after the merge?
The second largest mining pool, f2pool, has revealed that the proof-of-work era has come to an end on Ethereum. It revealed that the decision of a hard fork will be left to the miners. However, they affirm their willingness to move to Proof of Stake.
Chainlink ($LINK), a leading smart contract company, has also revealed its intention to support only the Proof of Stake layer of Ethereum.