Hardware wallets to take similar approach to potential Ethereum hard fork

Ethereum’s blockchain Merge is expected to take place around 5:05 UTC on September 15th. It is a milestone that marks a full transition towards proof-of-stake for Ethereum and eliminates the need for energy-intensive mining with an expected 99.9% compared to Proof of Work (PoW).

Some miners are also preparing for a hard fork that would allow them to continue using PoW consensus. Forked coins have proven to be lucrative in the past. Holders of Ether (ETH), for example, came to own a similar amount of Ethereum Classic (ETC) when it split in 2016.

In the event of a new hard fork, where the Ethereum blockchain would split into two different networks, users holding ETH on-chain would have an equal balance of ETHPoW (ETHW) on the forked chain. This would be an additional token and a completely different asset than ETH.

For ETH holders using hard wallets, the question is more straightforward: What would happen to your tokens if a fork followed the merge? We have prepared some answers to this question so that you don’t get lost or caught in a scam in the coming hours.

Most hard wallet providers take the same approach: Monitor adoption of the new chain as well as the forked chain before adding any support to ETHPoW. They also say that there is no need for users to take any action during the upgrade.

Charles Guillemet, Chief Security Officer for Secure Hard Wallet provider Ledger, explained to Cointelegraph: “In the event of a fork, the first thing everyone should know is that all assets that the user currently has on the main network are safe,” and adding that the Company “will not support an ETH Proof of Work fork on Day 1, as there are a number of technical aspects that need to be evaluated to ensure that it is safe for users, the most important of which is to ensure that the new chain is safe.”

Similarly, Josef Tětek, Bitcoin analyst at Trezor, said: “Trezor Suite will not support interaction with the pre-merger proof-of-work coins after the merge, but users can still use their Trezor with a third-party interface like MetaMask to access the older version of the blockchain.”

Tangem, a Swiss wallet provider, also has no plans to support the PoW fork. “Until we are sure of the seriousness of proponents of this hard fork, we are not ready to show our customers support for the project,” stated chief technology officer Andrey Lazutkin.

ETH holders using non-depot wallets and controlling their own private keys will have quick access to both sets of coins (ETHW and ETH). Private key owners can pool the forked coins using MetaMask to connect the PoW network to an Ethereum Virtual Machine wallet.

Crypto wallet companies are also warning users to take extra precautions during and after the network upgrade. “Fraudsters are particularly active during major network upgrades. Do not contact anyone who claims that you need to take urgent steps to protect your coins,” Tětek warned.