Your keys now control two balances.

The three facts that matter

• Nothing was taken from you. A chain split copies the ledger; it doesn't move coins. Your pre-split balance is intact on the majority chain and on the enforcing chain.
• Your seed phrase controls both. No new wallet, no migration, no "claim" process is required — ever. Anyone telling you otherwise wants your seed.
• Doing nothing is safe. Coins sitting still are not at risk from the split. All the hazards below involve moving them.

Replay: the one real technical risk

Both chains still speak the same transaction format. That means a transaction you broadcast on one chain can be copied — "replayed" — onto the other, where it is equally valid. Spend coins on one side carelessly and you may find you spent them on both.

Wallets that work on the enforcing chain

Light wallets need a server that indexes the enforcing chain, and since the proof-of-work change they also need to understand its 164-byte block headers. Both are covered:

• Shrike (releases, shrikewallet.com) — the wallet to use. A Sparrow fork built for this chain: it verifies the BLAKE2b proof of work itself and signs with SIGHASH_UNIFIED, so spends cannot replay onto the majority chain. Preferences → Server → Private Electrum, host electrum.bitcoinxor.org, port 50002, SSL on. Windows, macOS and Linux builds.
• BlueWallet — connects and works for post-split coins. Settings → Network → Electrum server, then the host and port above. It signs the ordinary way, so do not spend pre-split coins with it unless you accept the replay.
• Stock Sparrow and Electrum — do not work. They check each header's proof of work with SHA256d and reject every post-fork block ("does not meet its claimed proof of work target"). That is the wallet, not the server.
• Your own node — Bitcoin Knots with the enforcing rules remains the reference; see run a node.

The scams you will see

Every fork in Bitcoin's history has produced the same crop. Expect all of these, aimed at both chains' users:

• "Claim your forked coins" websites and apps asking for your seed phrase. There is no claim process. Entering a seed anywhere is handing over both balances.
• Fake wallet or node downloads — lookalike domains, "updated for the fork" binaries in DMs and forum posts. Get node software only from bitcoinknots.org (enforcing chain) or bitcoincore.org (majority chain), and verify signatures.
• Urgency manufacturing — "move your coins before the fork or lose them" (and now that it happened: "…before it's too late"). False both times. The fork changed how blocks are mined, not who owns what.
• Support impersonators in Discord/Telegram/X replies. No legitimate developer, pool, or this site will ever DM you first, ask for your seed, or ask you to "validate" your wallet.

Hardware wallet holders

Your device keeps working on both chains — the split doesn't affect key storage at all. Concretely:

• Do not type your seed into any website, app, or "fork tool". The device exists so the seed never leaves it.
• Firmware updates come only from your vendor's official app, on its usual schedule. "Emergency fork firmware" from anywhere else is an attack.
• To interact with the enforcing chain specifically, the honest path is your own node — see run a node.

Coins on exchanges

Exchange balances are IOUs, not keys. Whether you get credited on one chain, both, or neither after the fork is each exchange's policy decision, not a protocol rule. If controlling your balance on both chains matters to you, the only guarantee is withdrawing to your own keys — with the replay caveat above — before relying on any exchange's fork handling.