Ethereum [ETH] players are debating PoW vs. PoS.

Ethereum Merge is the market's most-anticipated event (potentially in September). As expected, ETH supporters are optimistic since it would improve network efficiency and reduce environmental impact.

Many key actors have plotted their next steps as the shift nears.

Comment?

PoW to PoS would integrate ETH's mainnet with the Beacon Chain. This will end miners' involvement.

ETH miners don't see eye-to-eye. Chandler Guo, a Chinese crypto-miner, led the discussion. Guo announced last week he would fork Ethereum to "ETH POW"

The unborn Ethereum PoW version has a website, ethereumpow.org.

Now, renowned crypto-exchanges back the project. In an 8 August blog post, the team said,

As long as ETH forked assets match our security requirements, we'll support users holding them and earning rewards. According to our guidelines, coin trading will be available soon.

If the platform's requirements are completed, Huobi Global will disperse forked assets (including ETH). Poloniex, funded by Justin Sun, will list ETHW and ETHS.

Sun promised developers and community members ETHW to enable the hard fork. MEXC, another crypto-service provider, blogged its support. In addition,

MEXC will display two potential forked ETH tokens and associated markets to reduce market volatility and protect user funds.

These postings would split ETH loyalists between the two connected networks.

Newbie callout

Colin Wu retweeted Vitalik Buterin's story on 7 August.

Chainlink used a similar strategy. Chainlink announced its services would stay on Ethereum's blockchain after Merge.

Bitmex Research published "ETHPoW vs ETH2" It investigated a hypothetical argument between the two Ethereum networks and highlighted ETHPoW's technological limitations.