The U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced that it “will not facilitate” the upcoming token migration of the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI), which means Coinbase users will have to figure out the details of this highly anticipated token merger on their own.
The Artificial Superintelligence Alliance is a consortium composed of AI-based blockchain companies Ocean Protocol, Fetch AI, and SingularityNET. The organization announced in April that their respective tokens – OCEAN, FET, and AGIX – will be merged. Although the Alliance stated that there will be a mechanism for exchanging tokens, Coinbase now states that this will not be part of the process.
A Coinbase spokesperson told Decrypt: “For the ASI token migration, Coinbase will not migrate these tokens on behalf of users, but users can migrate their own OCEAN and FET to ASI using the Coinbase Prime Web3 wallet or another Ethereum-compatible self-custody wallet.”
The company later added: “Coinbase does not currently support [SingularityNET token] AGIX on our platform, which is why it is not included.”
As for listing on its exchange, Coinbase added, “Support for trading of FET and OCEAN will continue until further notice.” As 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 1st.” Originally, the merger date was set for June 13th, but the AI Alliance later postponed the date.
Ultimately, with the gradual phase-out of OCEAN and AGIX, FET will become the official token of the ASI.
The consortium stated in a prepared statement: “This transition will be seamless, FET trading will remain uninterrupted and will not be delisted.” However, the tokens will be renamed, which may add another layer of confusion for users. “The project will be rebranded as the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance on platforms such as CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko.”
The organization added: “Not all exchanges will join immediately, but as we enter the second phase of the migration, they will be integrated.”
Coinbase’s decision not to support the ASI migration is not the first time the exchange has indicated a lack of support for 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, would disable trading of V1 Gala tokens, and would 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” for new tokens, rather than a replacement for old tokens.
Brink said: “I hope that once there’s some clarity, they will decide to support the V2 tokens.”
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
