Ethereum’s August Mining Revenue $200 Million Higher Than June
Ethereum’s mining phase (proof-of-work) is nearly at its end as the network prepares for the upcoming Merge. In the past few months since the crypto crashes, crypto miners have been suffering due to prices dropping while mining difficulty kept increasing.
The Merge is set to introduce a “mining difficulty bomb” which will increase the mining difficulty to a point where it is no longer profitable. This mechanism is to encourage miners to make the switch to PoS (Proof-of-stake).
Many miners have been speculating the move to mining Ethereum Classic (ETC): the currency that includes Ethereum’s original blockchain before the 2016 fork to what is now known as Ethereum.
ETC’s network hashrate most recently hit an all-time-high of 44.85 TH/s on 08/25/22. Earlier today, Sept. 2, the network hit a new all time high of 47.06 TH/s. While it does seem that some ETH miners are already switching over, ETH’s mining revenue for August was $200 million higher than it was in June.
This suggests that miners are taking advantage of the last few days or weeks of mining Ethereum. Many of them are likely stacking up to start staking their mined ETH once The Merge is completed.
Ethereum mining was a popular choice from the beginning to the end, as anyone from retail investors to institutional investors could start mining the coin. This brought about the last few years of GPU (Graphics Processing Units) scalping; in which “scalpers” would buy out all available stock of GPUs upon release to resell for over triple the MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price).
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 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 the 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.
