- Ethereum PoW has revealed plans for its mainnet.
- It has also released information on preparing full nodes.
- Many ETH miners are migrating to other networks to continue mining.
The Ethereum PoW chain has revealed its plans for the mainnet after The Merge takes place. The chain is a fork of the Ethereum network and will continue on the proof-of-work mechanism. The official Ethereum PoW Twitter handle posted its plan for the mainnet on Twitter on Sept. 13, offering a lot of details.
The ETHW mainnet will take place within 24 hours after The Merge, and there will be a timer viewable 1 hour before launch. The initial mining difficulty will not be lower than approximately 220 T, or a hash rate of 15 TH/s. The mainnet itself will start at The Merge block height plus an additional 2048 empty blocks “to make sure that the chainID switches to 10001 successfully and the chain is the longest chain of ETHW.”
Ethereum PoW is a fork that will continue to support the mining process, which was an important stream of revenue for many. It was started by Chinese crypto miner Chandler Guo who made the announcement in late July 2022.
Mining activity data before The Merge
The Merge is one of the most hotly anticipated events in recent times, and that shows in the performance of various metrics. The number of unique addresses has grown by a sizable number over the past 45 days, with an average of 70,000 new addresses between August and September.
Interestingly, Ethereum mining revenue has also been strong. The mining revenue for ETH outperformed bitcoin in the final month before The Merge. There was a 21% increase in revenue from $620.65 million in July to $756.11 million in August
Staking switch heavily impacts miners
The switch to proof-of-stake has had an enormous impact on mining in the crypto market. Alternatives to Ethereum, such as Ethereum Classic and Ravencoin, have seen a tremendous shift as miners look to maintain their income.
Ravencoin mining has taken off since The Merge has edged closer. The RVN token has seen a 71.4% jump in price over the past 7 days, and FTX has also begun offering an RVN perpetual futures product.