Ethereum completes PoS merge, but GPU-based ETH mining is not dead yet

Ethereum’s switch from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) has been completed earlier today as officially announced by the cryptocoin’s creator Vitalik Buterin via Twitter. This is regarded as a milestone event for the Ethereum ecosystem since the required energy for maintaining the whole network should be reduced by 99%, which translates to a 0.2% overall reduction for the global electricity consumption. It would also lead to a massive GPU dump, resulting in considerable discounts, but this might not happen right away. It looks like not all the ETH miners are willing to renounce their GPU exploits to embrace the greener PoS version.

Even though Ethereum Classic already exists as a PoW alternative to the main ETH chain, a new hard fork named EthereumPOW (ETHW) has recently been created for GPU miners. The creators of the ETHW chain intend to copy the entire original ETH blockchain complete with tokens, NFTs, DApps and even liquidity pools. However, for the time being, there are very few DApp operators and ETHW is not backed by any stablecoin, unlike Ethereum Classic, so its value remains highly speculative. ETHW still managed to get the support of TRON’s founder and established crypto exchange platforms like Poloniex and BitMEX.

The problem with copying the original Ethereum chain is that ETHW now includes the difficulty bomb that would make GPU mining useless some time in 2023. ETHW is not yet available as a coin, yet its IOU valuation is already trading at ~US$30. With quite a few GPU miners planning to continue supporting Ethereum Classic, EthereumPOW or whatever PoW coin emerges more profitable, the highly-anticipated GPU flood that would finally put an end to the inflated prices could be postponed. On the bright side, Nvidia and AMD are now offering most of the current gen GPUs at lower-than-MSRP in preparation for the next gen launches.

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