Ethereum Classic’s hashrate surpassed the 40 terahash per second (TH/s) region last Wednesday and four days later, the network’s hashpower reached an all-time high (ATH) at 48.82 TH/s on September 4. Ethereum’s transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) is expected to take place eight days from now, and a great deal of hashrate has left the crypto asset’s network during the last few days.
Ethereum’s sibling blockchain, known as Ethereum Classic, is taking advantage of Ethereum’s upcoming upgrade The Merge. This is because when the merge occurs, Ethereum (ETH) miners will no longer be able to mine ETH as the blockchain will be converted to a PoS system.
Four days ago, Bitcoin.com News reported on ETC’s hashrate rise over the 40 TH/s zone but at that time, Ethereum’s hashrate remained the same. The report noted that the hashrate would likely come in waves, and since the report on August 31, 2022, the waves of hashpower have started to increase.
Metrics recorded by ethash mining pool 2miners.com indicate that the hashrate of ETC tapped ATH at 48.82 TH/s on 4 September. The hashrate of Ethereum Classic is 19.86% higher than the ATH recorded on August 31st. At that time, Ethereum’s hash rate was almost the same but during the past four days, it fluctuated more often and decreased at the same time.
By the first day of September, ETH’s hashrate according to 2miners.com statistics was coasting along at 917 TH/s. Today, on September 5, Ethereum’s hashrate is running at 926.02 TH/s and Ethereum Classic’s hashpower has a dedicated 46 TH/s. ETC’s hashrate is just a hair down from the 48.82 TH/s ATH and will likely surpass the ATH again this week.
The merge is expected to happen only eight days from now and it is likely that a big hash rate wave will move from ETH to ETC. However, the card called ETHW has a planned Ethereum PoW fork and the public will not know what hash rate this proposed chain will have until the first few days after the network is mined.
At the time of writing, Ethermine.org is the largest ethereum mining pool with 260 TH/s dedicated to the chain. Ethermine noted at the end of August it would stop mining ethereum at the PoW level and revealed it would offer a liquid staking service for ETH 2.0. Antpool announced it would not support a new ETH PoW chain and said it would bolster ETC. Antpool also revealed an Ethereum Classic firmware upgrade for the company’s E9 Ethash mining rig.
The mining pools are F2pool, Hiveon, Poolin, 2miners.com and Flexpool.io, below Ethermine’s hash rate, in terms of the largest dedicated streams of Ethereum hashpower. Most mining pools that mine Ethereum (ETH) also mine Ethereum Classic. Poolin is the largest ETC mining pool on Monday, with 9.73 TH/s dedicated to the hashrate chain. Poolin is followed by F2pool, 2miners.com, Ethermine, Hiveon and Antpool.
