Switching from ETH to ETC Mining
Ethereum’s recent Merge to Proof-of-Stake (PoW) has depreciated ETH mining. Many miners have already moved over to Ethereum Classic. The network’s hashrate rose from from 71.73 TH/s (Terra hash per second) on September 14 to highs of 304.99 TH/s on Sept. 15 following The Merge.
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.
The process of switching from mining ETH to ETC
In our case, we decided to stay with T-rex miner and update to the latest version, 0.26.5. At FAL, we’ve tested Ethminer and T-rex miner to mine Ethereum. While Ethminer was great in the beginning, T-rex miner quickly became a faster and more reliable mining program. Ethminer has not been updated in a while, whereas T-rex miner was updated a month before The Merge on August 15.
The process was simple and only involved updating software and editing the script you will be using.
Update your Operating System
On Linux:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y && sudo reboot
Back up old files and install the updated miner
We installed the latest release of t-rex miner through their GitHub repository. We also backed up our old mining files, just in case.
Edit the script file for the currency you want to mine
The installed zip folder contains a help folder, README, the t-rex miner executable program, and a bunch of start scripts for mining different cryptocurrencies with different mining pools. For our testing, we will be using the file titled “ETC-2miners.sh”. This script launches the t-rex miner to mine Ethereum Classic (ETC) through the 2miners pool.
Coins compatible with t-rex miner include ALPH, CFX, ERGO, ETX, FIRO, LHR, and RVN. The files must be edited to include your wallet address. Note that you can use the same ETH address, used to mine ETH, for ETC mining payouts as well. Users can also add additional technical specifications such as limiting which GPU’s will be used to mine, power limiting GPU’s, and more.
Execute the startup script
On Linux:
./ETC-2miners.sh
Make it stand out
Once started, it may take a few minutes to initialize all GPU’s in your mining rig. You should a message similar to this photo, showing the stats for all GPU’s, hashrate, and average shares per minute.
You can also check your mining stats on 2miners.com after a while. Let it run for at least a few hours, up to a few days, for more accurate readings.
Feel free to comment on this post with any related questions! None of our posts or newsletters are meant to be taken as financial advice.
