Crypto exchange Binance suspends deposits and withdrawals for Ether and Wrapped Ether on some popular layer 2 Ethereum networks before the Bellatrix upgrade.

ETH transactions on Arbitrum and Optimism, two layer-two networks built on top of Ethereum, and Wrapped ETH transactions on the Ronin sidechain, will be suspended. The suspension will commence at 2 a.m. UTC on Sep. 6, 2022, and will resume when the networks are determined stable sometime after the merge.

The Merge, an upgrade to the Ethereum network to change its consensus mechanism from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, will commence on Sep. 6, 2022, with the Bellatrix upgrade and is expected to be completed between Sep. 10 and Sep. 20, 2022. The Bellatrix upgrade is scheduled to go live at 11:34:47 UTC, with the mining difficulty expected to increase to a point after which it will no longer be possible to mine Ether. Once this happens, the Ethereum network’s execution layer will merge with the proof-of-stake consensus layer, marking the completion of the Merge. Developers expect this to happen around Sep. 15-16, 2022.

Binance is suspending deposits and withdrawals for Ether (ETH) and Wrapped Ether (WETH) on selected networks to ensure that any airdropped tokens from proof-of-work forks will be correctly allocated. As previously reported, at least one group of developers is working to create a proof-of-work fork of the current Ethereum blockchain before the Merge happens. Any new tokens from these forks will likely be airdropped to existing ETH holders.

Before tokens are airdropped, a snapshot of all users’ ETH holdings will be taken to determine how many new tokens each user will receive. The regular trading of ETH on the Ethereum mainnet will not be affected.

In other Binance news, the exchange announced that it would be converting all U.S. Dollar Coin (USDC), Pax Dollar (USDP), and True USD (TUSD) stablecoins to Binance USD.

Coinbase announced on Aug. 25, 2022, that it would be pausing Ethereum and ERC-20 token deposits and withdrawals during the Merge and will resume once the Merge successfully reflects on their systems. Any new tokens from proof-of-work forks will be subject to its asset-listing policy, it said on Aug. 27, 2022.

Kraken will also pause Ethereum and ERC-20 transactions during the merge. Kraken said that even if it does not support the trading of forked tokens, it could still decide to allow custody of those tokens. Kraken accounts holding ETH would be credited with the new token.

Controversial Tron founder Justin Sun said that his Poloniex exchange would support all new hard fork tokens.

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