Any Ethereum Forks ‘Won’t Be Supported’, Says NFT Market OpenSea Ahead of Merge

OpenSea, the largest nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, will be exclusively supporting proof-of-stake (PoS) NFTs on Ethereum, tweeting on Wednesday that “we are committed to solely supporting NFTs on the upgraded Ethereum PoS chain.”

The NFT behemoth added that any Ethereum forks, a technical term for when a blockchain network splits, will not be supported on OpenSea to provide the smoothest transition possible following the merge.

OpenSea is the first NFT marketplace that opened up shop on Ethereum in 2017 and now supports over 80 million NFTs and around $31 billion in total volume since inception, according to DappRadar. 

NFTs are blockchain-based tokens that represent ownership in art, music, and real estate. They are kept on the Ethereum blockchain and traded on marketplaces like OpenSea.

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The merge event, one of Ethereum’s biggest upgrades to date, is expected to occur some time between September 10 and September 16. The event will shift Ethereum from its proof-of-workproof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm to a PoS-based algorithm. 

Circle Joins OpenSea’s stance on Merge

Though OpenSea has signaled that it won’t support any forked versions of Ethereum, other platforms have taken a much different stance.

Crypto exchange Bitfinex, for example, said it would provide traders with options should the merge cause a fork. Two Ethereum Chain Split tokens were launched on Bitfinex, ETHW, an Ether token supporting PoW, and ETHS, the PoS version. 

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Coinbase has also been considering giving forked ETHW a spot on the exchange to “create a leveled playing field,” a Coinbase blog read. Any forked ETH token “will be reviewed with the same rigor as any other asset that is listed on our exchange.” 

Circle, the company behind the second largest United States dollar stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), joined OpenSea’s stance, stating in an announcement that “our sole plan is to fully support the upgraded Ethereum PoS chain.”