Explained: What Happens To Ethereum (ETH) Holdings During And After Merge?

A section of the crypto community is anticipating potential Ethereum proof of work in parallel with the new proof of stake chain. However, chances of success of the proof of work chain are highly unpredictable at the moment. On the other side, there are high chances of ETH miners shifting to Ethereum Classic (ETC) after Merge. Also, it will be interesting how ETC price movement could pan out to be post September 15.

What About Proof Of Work Ethereum After Merge

After the main Ethereum network ‘Merges’ with the Beacon Chain, the old proof of work will continue to exist. Also, people could still continue to trade the old coin associated with proof of work. And there would be no stopping of trading the old coin. In addition, miners would be looking to maximize on mining the old coin before it shifts to the new mechanism. The possibility of a hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain would also come with some drawbacks. It could cause major confusion and potential technological issues, going forward.

Those Ethereum holders who wish to stick with the upcoming proof of stake chain would be carried forward by default. After the Merge, all the old ETH coins of traders would have already be running on the new consensus mechanism.

Potential Forked Tokens

Meanwhile, crypto exchange Poloniex is already prepared for hard fork Ethereum trade. It has enabled trading of potential ETH forks. A swapping option for ETH to the possible forked tokens is open for Poloniex customers.

“Poloniex has enabled the trading of potential ETH forks, ETHS (ETH2) and ETHW (ETH1), and listed TRON-based ETHS and ETHW. Prior to the official ETH 2.0 upgrade, ETH holders on Poloniex can go to the swap page to swap their ETH into two “potential forked” tokens, ETHS [IOU] and ETHW [IOU] , at a 1:1 ratio.”

Since June this year, ETH’s share of cryptocurrency market by capitalization has largely been on a rise. Currently, the cryptocurrency holds nearly 20% of the total market cap. Whereas Bitcoin’s market share has been on a decline in the recent times. BTC’s market share stands at 38.88% while that of ETH is 19.48%. As of writing, Ethereum’s price stands at $1,555, up 0.29% in the last 24 hours, according to price tracker CoinMarketCap.

Meanwhile, the price of Ethereum Classic stands at $31.93, down 1.13% in the last 24 hours. However, if any hiccups arise for Ethereum’s shift to proof of stake mechanism, ETC could see high demand.