The supporters for the planned forked Ethereum, dubbed ETHW, seem to continue growing with the latest crypto exchange added to the group.
Recently, Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitrue announced that it would offer ETHW tokens, the proof-of-work (PoW) version of Ethereum which is planned by “merge resistors”.
Support for planned forked ETH
At the moment, “merge resistors” are trying to construct PoW version by forking the Ethereum blockchain.
Bitrue Chief Marketing Officer Adam O’Neill, according to several news sources, stated that the crypto exchange always wants to provide its users with “unmatched choice”.
Bitrue, which ranks 20th among crypto exchanges worldwide, will make the ETHW token accessible to all existing ETH holders on its platform through a swap and IOU mechanism. The crypto exchange, which has a 24-hour trading volume of more than $1.5 billion, will also create a proof-of-stake (PoS) ETH token when the merge happens.
Both tokens will then be accessible before the merging. This means that if ETHW fails or never materializes, all ETHW on Bitrue’s platform will be converted to PoS ETH after the merge.
Other backers of forked ETH
Bitrue adds to the growing list of ETHW backers, such as Justin Sun’s Poloniex, Huobi, and BitMEX.
The biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by volume, Binance, also signified support for ETHW.
However, other crypto exchanges, such as Circle and Tether (the makers of the two biggest stablecoins, USDC and USDT, respectively), have made it clear that they would not support ETHW in any way.
Earlier this month, Chandler Guo, a well-known Chinese cryptocurrency miner, initiated the push to develop ETHW. Guo and other crypto miners have reaped considerable profits from mining Ethereum using an energy-intensive method involving the application of vast quantities of computing power to difficult-to-solve problems.
The Ethereum merge is a protocol upgrade that will join the Ethereum mainnet with the PoS beacon chain. It marks the last phase of the network’s shift away from PoW and will occur on or around September 15.