ETC, the token of Ethereum Classic, logged a double-digit gain in the past 24 hours as of Tuesday morning in Asia, while its hashrate hit a record high on Monday as miners look for alternatives in anticipation of the “Merge.”
Fast facts
Ethereum Classic, the original blockchain from which the current Ethereum (ETH) network was forked, saw its native token surge 24.4% in the prior 24 hours to change hands at US$40.38 at 9:40 a.m. in Hong Kong, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
That price gain comes as the network’s hashrate hit 48.89 terahashes per second (TH/s) on Monday, the highest level on record, before the reading nudged down to 45.99 TH/s on Tuesday morning, data from 2miners.com showed.
The ETC hashrate level, which refers to the total computational power used for mining and processing transactions, was at 29.85 TH/s on Aug. 7.
While Ethereum is working toward its highly-anticipated transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism, miners who are invested in proof-of-work (PoW) consensus model have appeared to contribute to mining Ethereum Classic, which goes with the PoW model.
BTC.com, one of the largest mining pools, announced last week that it would offer zero-fee ETC mining for three months starting Sept. 1.
ETH gained 5.23% in the past 24 hours to flip hands at US$1,661.