diff --git a/distributed/protocol/sparse.py b/distributed/protocol/sparse.py
index c90ac4d4c4b..d8b7a42c2f8 100644
--- a/distributed/protocol/sparse.py
+++ b/distributed/protocol/sparse.py
@@ -28,4 +28,5 @@ def deserialize_sparse(header, frames):
     return sparse.COO(coords, data, shape=shape)
 
 
-register_serialization('sparse.core.COO', serialize_sparse, deserialize_sparse)
+register_serialization('sparse.core.COO', serialize_sparse, deserialize_sparse)  # version 0.1
+register_serialization('sparse.coo.COO', serialize_sparse, deserialize_sparse)  # version 0.2