On August 31, 2022, the hash rate of Ethereum Classic reached another all-time high (ATH) this year at block highs of 15,850,811. Ethereum Classic’s global hashpower crossed the 40 terahash per second (th/s) zone on Wednesday. Despite the fact that the network’s hash rate has increased significantly, Ethereum’s hash rate remains relatively unchanged and exceeds 1,000 TH/s dedicated to the network.
66 mining pools dedicate over 1,000 terahashes to Ethereum, the network’s hash rate remains stable and unchanged
At the time of writing, Ethereum has a total difficulty of 12374533505752422, and the network will transition from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) network to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain when the total difficulty reaches 58750000000000000000 in approximately 13 days . through merge.
When the transition is codified into the codebase, Ethereum (ETH) miners will no longer be able to mine the digital currency. There are currently approximately 66 Ether mining pools dedicating Eth hashrate towards Ethereum, and they represent 1.04 Petash per second (pH/s) or 1,040 (TH/s) hashpower.
When the change happens, Ethush miners will have to create a separate network, and they can choose blockchains such as Ethereum Classic, Ravencoin, Beam, and Ergo. It has been widely reported during the past two months that many believe the Ethereum Classic (ETC) network will move the rewards of Ethereum miners to another chain.
In fact, ETC has seen an increase in recent days, and on August 31, 2022, the network hash rate ATH tapping 40.73 TH/s reached a block height of 15,850,811. However, while Ethereum’s hash rate has dropped somewhat at the end of June, it has remained almost the same since July 1, 2022.
Ethereum Classic could see massive wave of dedicated hashpower within the next two weeks
Ethereum’s hash rate has registered a slight increase during the past 62 days, and added TeraHash is the same amount of hashpower that secures the entire ETC chain. Ravencoin, Beam and Ergo Hashrate have registered modest growth in terms of hashpower, but nothing compared to ETC recorded since the first week of August 2022.
ETC’s hash rate has reached record all-time highs several times this week and over the past 24 hours. With data suggesting that Ethereum miners may continue mining Ether until the end (The Merge), the Ethash-consensus chain like ETC could see a massive wave of dedicated hashpower within the next two weeks.
Several large mining pools, including Ethermine and Antpool, have explained that they plan to stop mining ether in a PoW fashion and will support the ETH 2.0 transition. In addition, Ethermine announced the launch of a liquid staking service dedicated to the ETH 2.0 chain, and Antpool once said it was dedicating $10 million in resources to the Ethereum Classic ecosystem.
Both mining pools (Ethermine, Antpool) and many others already mine ETC and are suggesting that pool participants choose another ethash-consensus chain such as ETC, RVN, BEAM, or ERGO when the merge occurs. When the hashrate wave arrives is anyone’s guess, as it is extremely profitable to mine Ethereum (ETH) compared to mining coins that leverage other consensus algorithms.
As of Thursday, September 1, 2022 at 11:00 am (EST), data suggests that Bitmain’s new ethash miner Antminer E9 could generate an estimated $47.72 profit per day with 2,400 megahash per second (MH/s). An Innosilicon A11 with 1,500 MH/s can get an estimated $26.52 per day in Ether profits.
What do you think about Ethereum Classic’s hash rate hitting an all-time high on August 31st? When do you expect one of these Ethash consensus networks to get a wave of hashpower? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comment section below.
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