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Almost every cryptocurrency market participant has heard about the upcoming Ethereum upgrade designed to change the network completely, but far too many people are missing out on the ways to take advantage of one of the biggest events in the cryptocurrency industry. Bobby Ong explains how.
PoW tokens
If you have some ETH tokens, you automatically become eligible for an Ethereum PoW token airdrop. If you hold your funds on centralized exchanges or noncustodial wallets, it would be better to move funds to a hardware wallet to take full control of it.
1. To get the ETH PoW tokens, you must first hold ETH on a wallet that supports this fork.
The best would be to have full custody of your ETH on a hardware wallet. If you are holding ETH on an exchange, your exchange may or may not give you the fork tokens.— Bobby Ong (@bobbyong) September 5, 2022
Once the hardfork occurs, you will be able to get "free" PoW tokens that you can hold, sell, transfer or do whatever you want to with them.
Avoid keeping Ethereum on Layer 2
While there is nothing wrong with using Optimism, Arbitrum and other alternative Ethereum layers, you will not get any ETH PoW tokens if you hold your assets there. Until the merger happens, you can move your funds to any hardware wallet or an exchange that supports a PoW fork, claim your tokens and then move your funds back.
Borrowing ETH from DeFi platforms
We are already seeing a massive spike in the volume of platforms like AAVE or Compound that offer ETH for collateral. Investors are looking for ways to maximize their airdrop share, which is why they are getting "cheap" ETH by putting some of their spare funds into collateral.
Technically, it is a more convenient way of receiving temporary exposure to Ethereum if your main goal is to get as many PoW coins as you can.
As for now, less than 10 days remain ahead of the massive update for the Ethereum network, and it is expected around Sept. 13.
Vladislav Sopov