Chainlink says protocol will not support Ethereum PoW forks

Chainlink Labs says its protocol will not support any forked versions of Ethereum (ETH) ahead of the highly anticipated ‘Merge’ event that will see the Ethereum network upgrade from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus layer.

Chainlink Labs not supportive of ETHPoW

Chainlink (LINK), whose team has said it targets ensuring continuity for its users within the Ethereum ecosystem, is among those to clearly say they won’t be supporting new versions of ETH.

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The Chainlink Labs team said in a post on Monday:

The Chainlink protocol and its services will remain operational on the Ethereum blockchain during and after the Merge to the PoS consensus layer. Users should be aware that forked versions of the Ethereum blockchain, including PoW forks, will not be supported by the Chainlink protocol.”

According to the protocol, its unforeseen application-level risks on the PoW forks among other reasons provided the basis for the decision not to support any such forks.

The team is also advising developers and decentralised applications (dApps) teams to take steps towards protecting users, particularly where teams “are unsure of their migration strategy.”

“dApps operating on forked versions of Ethereum, including PoW forks, might behave in unexpected ways due to both protocol and application-level issues, introducing increased risk for users.”

As the Ethereum merge moves closer, calls among some within the ecosystem, especially miners, are looking at forking the blockchain to continue mining to the last juice using their ASICs. This idea has had some support from quarters, including Poloniex and Tron (TRX). Tron founder Justin Sun tweeted about the support on Monday.