Japan’s BitFlyer To Pay Close Attention To Any ETH POW Hard Fork

Japan’s BitFlyer will pay close attention to any Ethereum Proof of Work hard fork, as the Merge date for the Ethereum network is closer than ever. The ETH network will move from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS), and Japan’s BitFlyer has said that forked tokens that rely on PoW may be supported.

BitFlyer did not explicitly declare whether forked tokens will be supported in a blog post published on Monday, but did say it will evaluate it “depending on the scenario.”

Japan’s BitFlyer also said in a statement that they will pay close attention to the value of Ethereum Proof Of Work tokens, as well as requests from their customer. Depending on the specific situation they will either consider granting ETH Proof of Work tokens and handling them in kind, or they will just issue the cash equivalent on their value depending on the time of money issue. The company stated this in a Japanese blog post, for which there is only a rough translation, which we enclose herein:

“We will pay close attention to the value of ETHPoW tokens and requests from customers, and depending on the situation, we will consider granting and handling ETHPoW tokens in kind, or issuing cash equivalent to their value,”

The exchange also stated that any new tokens will require the permission of the Japanese Virtual Crypto Assets Exchange Association (JVCEA).

The main exchange stated earlier this month that it will “review and consider support” for any forked ETH tokens, while FTX stated that it will “examine the distribution” of any forked tokens. This means that if FTX decides to distribute the forked tokens, they will do so only when the project is done. This was said in a statement by FTX related to the matter at hand.

A similar phrase was used in a statement by and other major cryptocurrency exchanges.

In a study earlier this month, the US-based crypto exchange stated that there is no “black and white” conclusion to the PoW vs. PoS debate. Instead, anybody considering adopting a blockchain network should get a “nuanced understanding of the two and their trade-offs” in order to choose which option is “best suited” to their needs, according to the research.

The Ethereum Merge – or switch from PoW to PoS – is scheduled on September 15.