The U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced that it will not support the upcoming token migration of the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI), meaning that Coinbase users will have to figure out the details of this highly anticipated token merger on their own.
The Artificial Superintelligence Alliance is made up of blockchain-based companies Ocean Protocol, Fetch AI, and SingularityNET. The organization announced in April that their respective tokens – OCEAN, FET, and AGIX – will merge. Although the alliance stated that there would be a mechanism for exchanging tokens, Coinbase now says that this will not be part of the process.
A Coinbase spokesperson told Decrypt, “For the ASI token migration, Coinbase will not be migrating these tokens on behalf of users, but users can migrate their OCEAN and FET to ASI using the Coinbase Prime Web3 wallet or another Ethereum-compatible self-custody wallet.”
The company later added, “Coinbase currently does not support [SingularityNET token] AGIX on our platform, which is why it is not included.”
Regarding the listing on its exchange, Coinbase added, “Support for trading of FET and OCEAN will continue until further notice.” Since the token merger will effectively result in the merging of OCEAN and AGIX tokens into FET, it is currently unclear how Coinbase will continue to support trading of the renamed FET token if it does not support migration on its platform.
Fetch AI founder and CEO Humayun Sheikh stated that Coinbase’s decision will not affect the merger of the three tokens.
Sheikh told Decrypt, “We confirm that AGIX and OCEAN will merge into FET on Monday, July 1.” The original merger date was set for June 13, but the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance later postponed the date.
Ultimately, with the gradual phasing out of OCEAN and AGIX, FET will become the official token of ASI.
The alliance stated in a pre-prepared statement, “The transition will be seamless, FET trading will remain uninterrupted, and there will be no delisting.” However, the tokens will be renamed, which may add another layer of confusion for users. “The project will be renamed to Artificial Superintelligence Alliance on platforms such as CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko.”
The organization added, “Not all exchanges will immediately join, but as we enter the second phase of migration, they will be integrated.”
Coinbase’s decision not to support the ASI migration is not the first time the exchange has indicated that it will not support token actions. When Gala Games prepared to launch the V2 token airdrop last month, Coinbase told users that they could freely send the tokens to a self-custody wallet, as the exchange would not support the transition, disable trading of V1 Gala tokens, and not allow holders to receive the new token airdrop.
Gala Games blockchain president Jason Brink wrote on Twitter at the time that he was unsure why Coinbase would take this stance, but suspected it was because the event looked more like a “token airdrop” than a replacement of old tokens.
Brink said, “I hope that once there’s a bit more clarity, they will decide to support the V2 tokens.”
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.