Ethereum Classic Hashrate Jumps as Ethereum Hashrate Drops

Ethereum’s upcoming merge will bring about the transition from proof-of-work (PoW; mining) to proof-of-stake (PoS; staking). This update has been in the works for the past few years with many delays.

The Merge will introduce a “mining difficulty bomb”. This mechanism will increase the mining difficulty to a point where mining ETH is no longer profitable. This is to encourage miners to make the switch to PoS.

There is a growing community pushing for and developing a fork of Ethereum that would remain on POW so that miners can continue.

ETC’s network hashrate rose from 18.2955 TH/s (Terra Hash per second) on 07/15/22 to an all-time-high of 44.85 TH/s on 08/25/22.

ETH’s hashrate hit its all time high a few months ago in May 2022 reaching 1.06 PH/s (Peta hash per second; 1 Peta hash = 1,000 Terra hash). It has since been dropping since then, and for the first time since June 2021.  

Crypto miner Chandler Guo, who was also involved in the Ethereum classic fork in 2016, announced that he is working on a fork that will never go through the merge. This would allow current ETH miners to simply switch over to the forked crypto network.

Ethereum classic was forked from Ethereum in 2016 following The DAO hack. The hack resulted in a divide on how to react to the situation. Some investors wanted to reverse the blockchain to before the hack, while others argued heavily against this arguing that it would set a precedent for future bailouts. In the end 97% of poll voters voted for restoration of funds. The Ethereum we know today is the fork that erased the hack from the blockchain, while Ethereum classic is the original and unchanged blockchain.