Coinbase to Temporarily Halt Ethereum Transactions During 'The Merge'

Popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has revealed a set of guidelines in preparation for the highly anticipated Ethereum Merge upgrade that will transition the network to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol. The exchange is set to briefly pause all withdrawals and deposits involving Ethereum until the entire Merge migration, scheduled for around September 15, is complete, as Coinbase stated in a blog post published on August 16. The measure is being implemented to facilitate smooth trading of the asset and other ERC-20 tokens once the migration is complete.

According to the exchange, Ethereum will offer a seamless experience to users once the transition is complete. “During the Merge, Coinbase will briefly pause new Ethereum and ERC-20 token deposits and withdrawals as a precautionary measure. This downtime allows us to ensure that the transition has been successfully reflected by our systems. We do not expect any other networks or currencies to be impacted and expect no impact to trading for ETH and ERC-20 tokens across our centralised trading products,” Coinbase said.

Coinbase also noted the chances of scammers taking advantage ahead of the Merge are high and called for vigilance. “We recommend you don’t send your ETH to anyone in an attempt to ‘upgrade to ETH2’ as there is no ETH2 token. Your assets will be safe and secure during this period and no action is required to upgrade on your part.”

The platform emphasised the former point, highlighting that ahead of the Merge, users will see an ETH2 ticker to represent staked ETH. This ticker will be outdated once the PoS transition is completed as there “is no ETH2 token”.

The crypto community is anticipating Ethereum to make a full transition after it completed the Goerli testnet on August 10. The update is the blockchain’s final trial before migrating from Proof-of-Work (PoW).

It is worth mentioning that the Merge was initially scheduled for September 19 before the date was revised in an update shared by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. The revised date was due to fixing the number of hashes left to mine.