Ethereum’s Largest Mining Pool Shuns Proof-of-Work Fork, Set Sights On ETC, And Other GPU Mineable Coins

Bitfly, the firm behind Ethereum’s most significant mining pool Ethermine has revealed in a recent blog post that it will be ceasing all Ethereum Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining operations following The Merge. Additionally, it will not create a dedicated mining pool for any Ethereum PoW fork.

“After carefull [careful] evaluation bitfly has decided not to offer a dedicated mining pool for any of the planned PoW fork,” the company wrote.

The firm reveals that the mining pool would switch to withdraw-only mode post-Merge. In addition, miners will be equipped with a countdown timer on their dashboard to inform them of how long they have left to mine Ethereum.

Furthermore, Bitfly urges miners who wish to mine other GPU mineable coins like Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ravencoin, Ergo, and Beam to join the dedicated mining pools they have for the tokens. As an added incentive, Bitfly plans to offer a 0% fee to members of the above mining pools for September.

The Ethereum PoW Hard Fork Push

It is worth noting that groups of dissatisfied Ethereum miners opposed to The Merge have banded together to push for an Ethereum PoW hard fork. Notably, the EthereumPoW or ETHW Core group claims to have made significant progress. It disclosed last Friday that it has gotten rid of the difficulty bomb just days after it revealed it would abolish EIP-1559 in its branched chain.

While the hard fork has received support from about six exchanges, it has failed to garner much-needed support from stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle. Meanwhile, Justin Sun’s Poloniex has already launched trading for ETHW, the chain’s native token. Sun has been one of the biggest supporters of the move, offering rewards for ETHW developers.

On his part, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has asserted that he doesn’t expect a PoW fork to affect Ethereum. However, Buterin casts doubt on the motives of the groups behind the hard fork, saying they are in it to make a quick profit.

The Merge

The Ethereum Merge is the Ethereum network’s migration from the PoW consensus mechanism to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). It is worth noting that the move is expected to happen in less than a month, on September 15. 

Last Thursday, the network achieved a significant milestone on its way to The Merge. The development team revealed that it had finalized The Merge on the network’s final testnet, Goerli.

As The Merge draws closer, Ethereum has become the focus of speculation in the crypto markets. As a result, the asset surged by a whopping 55% in July. Ethereum is trading at the $1,660 price point, up 2.79% in the last 24 hours and down 8.16% in the last seven days.