The Ethereum blockchain merge is expected to happen around 5:05 UTC on September 15th. This is a significant milestone that marks a full transition to proof-of-concept for Ethereum, and eliminates the need for energy-intensive mining at 99.9% proof-of-work (PoW).
Some miners are also preparing for a hard fork that would allow them to continue using the PoW consensus. Forked tires have proven to be profitable in the past. For example, holders of ether (ETH) ended up owning an equal amount of Ethereum Classic (ETC) when it forked in 2016.
In the event of a new hard fork, in which the Ethereum blockchain splits into two different networks, users with ETH on the forked chain will have an equal balance of ETHPoW (ETHW). It would be an additional token and a completely different asset from ETH.
For ETH holders using hard wallets, the question is simpler: What would happen to your tokens if the Merger fork followed? We have prepared some answers to this question so that you are not lost or caught in a scam in the next few hours.
Most of the hard wallet providers take the same approach: Monitor the adoption of the new chain as well as the forked chain before adding support for ETHPoW. They also claim that users do not need to take any action during the upgrade.
Charles Guillemet, head of security at the secure hard wallet provider Ledger, told Cointelegraph: “In the event of a fork, the first thing everyone should know is that any assets the user currently has on the mainnet are safe. He also says that the company “will not support the ETH Proof of Work fork on the day of the upgrade. Because of that, there are some technical aspects that must be considered to ensure that it is safe for users, the main one is to ensure that the new channel is secure. »
Likewise, Josef Tětek, Bitcoin Analyst at Trezor, said: “After the Merge, the Trezor series will not support interaction with pre-merge Proof of Work coins, but users can still use their Trezor with a third-party interface like MetaMask to access the old version of the blockchain. »
Tangem, the Swiss wallet provider, does not plan to support the PoW fork either. “Until we are sure of the seriousness of the promoters of this hard fork, we are not ready to show our support for the project to our customers. said technical director Andrey Lazutkin.
ETH holders who use a non-hosted wallet and control their own private keys will have quick access to both sets of coins (ETHW and ETH). Owners of the private keys can retrieve the forked coins by using MetaMask to connect the PoW network to the Ethereum Virtual Machine wallet.
Cryptocurrency companies are also warning users to take extra precautions during and after the network upgrade. “Scammers are particularly active during major network upgrades. Do not contact anyone who claims that you need to take urgent action to protect your assets. ” warned Tětek.
