Ethereum Classic Hash Rate Soars as Merger Approaches and Miners Roam

Like the long-awaited Ethereum upgrade approachminers seem to be changing their platforms to Classic Ethereum.

Ethereum is about to end mining on its network tonight after the merger, which moves the network to proof of stake. Meanwhile, the “original” Ethereum chain – Ethereum Classic, which forked in 2016 – reached a record hash rate of 65.49 terahashes per second (TH/s), according to data from 2miners.com.

Hash rate refers to the computing power used to mine a cryptocurrency. Assets like Bitcoin, Classic Ethereumand Ethereum (before merging) use a proof of work system, which requires many powerful computers – and energy – to process transactions.

But Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is today making its long-awaited move to a proof-of-stake blockchain, replacing miners with validators, people who “stake” cryptocurrency to ensure network security and operation.

The upgrade will make the network “99% more energy efficient”, according to the Ethereum Foundation. Just about anyone can get involved in the staking process, helping secure the new network and passively earning ETH, either by staking 32 ETH themselves or joining a staking pool through an exchange. like Coinbase.

But this decision leaves former Ethereum miners with potentially nothing to doso many people will probably be instead mine Ethereum Classic and other compatible parts, like Ravencoin.

Ethereum Classic is a hard fork of Ethereum: In 2016, those involved in cryptocurrency had a disagreement over the direction the network should go after the DAO hack, in which $55 million in crypto has been stolen due to a vulnerability in the code.

Ultimately, the developers parted ways and two new blockchains were created: Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, which trades as ETC.

ETC is not as popular as Ethereum, which is widely used as developers use its blockchain to build applications. But miners will have to switch to Ethereum Classic or similar coins to keep using their hardware and stay profitable.

Ethereum Classic is currently the eighteenth largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of over $5 billion.