As we head closer to Ethereum’s merge, one of the most anticipated events of the crypto world, major players in the ecosystem need to determine if they will support a potential fork of Ethereum.
OpenSea, the largest platform for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has declared that it would only support Ethereum’s Proof of stake (PoS) methodology.
The news of such a major NFT platform declaring the full commitment to Ethereum’s proof of stake technology caught a lot of people by surprise.
The company declared that it will not be to supporting NFTs on Ethereum’s Proof-of-Work ecosystem, after a potential fork after Ethereum’s Merge to PoW.
“First, and most importantly, we are committed to only supporting NFTs on the updated Ethereum PoS chain.” Opensea’s official Twitter account wrote. “Although we won’t speculate on potential forks – insofar as forked NFTs on ETHPoW exist – they will not be supported or represented on OpenSea.“
OpenSea Already Preparing For The Merge
The platform also adds that it the overall feeling is very optimistic about the transition and has already begun planning for The Merge upgrade.
OpenSea states that they have prepared its NFT platform in order to ensure a smooth transition for its users.
The company also said that while OpenSea does not anticipate any major issues, the fact that
Ethereum’s merge is a once-in-a-lifetime event, the company is committed to monitoring the event in real time, to avoid any potential problems from happening.
What Is The Fork?
The much awaited Merge upgrade, which will transition Ethereum’s blockchain from the current Proof-of-Work consensus to Proof-of-Stake will happen by merging the classic blockchain with the Beacon Chain.
The long-awaited The Merge update, which is expected to arrive in the coming weeks, provides for a transition from the current proof-of-work (PoW) consensus to that of proof-of-stake (PoS) by merging the classic blockchain with the Beacon Chain (a ledger of accounts that conducts and coordinates the network of stakers).
Despite The Merge being a much-awaited update that will cut Ethereum’s global energy use by 99.9%, not everyone is happy with the transition.
The mining community, which is based of cryptocurrency miners that have invested large amounts of money in expensive graphic cards and mining machines, obviously would prefer to keep Ethereum’s mining system as it is.
For this reason, the creation of a “forked” version of Ethereum (ETHPOW), which will maintain its Proof-of-Work consensus is likely to be created.
But this indicates a distinction between a blockchain that will eventually move to proof of stake (and hence have validators) and one that may fork in order to keep mining as an option.
Because of this, key players in the ecosystem, like OpenSea in this case, must determine whether they support the creation of a second blockchain or not.
The company Circle, which provides the Ethereum blockchain’s most capitalized stablecoin, USDC already stated that they will only support Ethereum’s proof-of-stake version. Chainlink, the main oracle network in Ethereum’s ecosystem also follows this decision.
On the other hand, Binance and Huobi Global already stated that they will be supporting a forked version of Ethereum.
