After years of delay, the Ethereum network will finally move to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.
The Ethereum Merge intends to eliminate the need for energy-intensive mining protocols. This has probably caused a rift in the Crypto space as miners are unwilling to shut down their revenue stream. Hence, they have proposed forking Ethereum or starting to mine other blockchains.
ETHW, the proof-of-work hardfork, was proposed by a Chinese crypto miner Chandler Guo. This hardfork is expected to be launched soon after the Ethereum Merge on September 15.
Chandler Guo played a major part in forking Ethereum in 2016 to continue the existing chain as Ethereum Classic.
According to the official tweet, the ETHW mainnet will be launched within 24 hours after the Merge. The exact time will be announced 1 hour before launch, along with a countdown timer. It will also include final code, binaries, config files, nodes info, RPC, and explorer.
The mainnet will likely start at 2,048 empty blocks beyond the Merge block. It will also consist of additional padding to ensure that the chainID—a unique differentiator among blockchains transitions successfully. This chain will be the longest chain of ETHW.
ETHW seems to be a direct response to the Merge, with those hoping to restore the older Ethereum state, with its transaction history, as a means of survival.
This is not the first time the ETH network has forked. In 2015, Ethereum was split into two separate chains, Ethereum and Ethereum Classic (ETC), with the latter maintaining the original code and curated by Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood.
Ethereum Classic developer Igor Artamonov believes that post-launching the EthereumPoW mainnet after the Merge is like losing 90% of momentum. He also questioned the stated motives of the hardfork and opined that no one would take it seriously if it's not a continuous / non-stop chain.
Consequently, Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buterin, claimed people pushing for a hard fork are "simply trying to make a quick buck." However, whether this hardfork will succeed or not, several major crypto exchanges have shown interest in supporting it.
Binance announced that it would credit users' accounts with coins from the minority fork at a 1:1 ratio and retain the ETH ticker for the Ethereum PoS chain.
Coinbase announced full support of the Merge upgrade and will list every legal and safe asset.
ETHW has fallen 49% from its all-time high of $141.36 on August 8 to a current trading value of $30.65. It is currently up by nearly 3%, with a 24-hours trading volume of $2M
Disclaimer: The author's comments and recommendations are solely for educational and informative purposes. They do not represent any financial or investment advice. Always DYOR (do your own research)