Prominent crypto investment firm Grayscale has officially decided to divest itself of all rights associated with post-merge Proof-of-Work [PoW] Ethereum tokens, known as ETHPoW. The move comes after a thorough analysis of the ETHPoW token’s inability to generate substantial liquidity and the lack of support for such tokens from the products’ custodians. In an announcement filed recently, the investment manager mentioned “irrevocably abandoning” all rights linked to ETHPoW tokens on behalf of the record-date shareholders of each of its products.
Grayscale’s choice to give up rights to ETHPoW tokens comes more than a year after the Ethereum Merge event, a watershed moment that signaled Ethereum’s complete transition from PoW to Proof-of-Stake [PoS]. The Merge, executed on September 15, 2022, effectively forked the Ethereum blockchain into two entities: the primary PoS-based Ethereum and a secondary PoW-based Ethereum.
After the pivotal event, Grayscale contemplated whether to acquire Ethereum PoW and subsequently trade ETHW tokens on behalf of its record-date shareholders. But this decision took almost six months to unfold, with an additional 180 days of contemplation. The firm cited uncertainties around the support for ETHW tokens from digital asset custodians and trading platforms as contributing factors to the delayed timeline.
Grayscale: EthereumPoW ETPs Have No Custody Provider
Interestingly, other crypto investment firms, such as the ETC Group, did the complete opposite, launching dedicated EthereumPoW exchange-traded products [ETPs]. However, its endeavor proved short-lived, as ETC Group removed its PoW-based ZETW ETP just six weeks after its release, citing the absence of qualified custody providers.
Simultaneously, Ethereum’s development community has unveiled a groundbreaking proposition named Ethereum Request for Comments [ERC]-7512. This proposal carries the ambitious goal of bolstering the security of Ethereum’s decentralized applications [dApps] by revolutionizing the conventional landscape of smart contract auditing. The core innovation lies in the shift from traditional off-chain methods to a novel approach of on-chain verification for audit information.
Esteemed experts in the field assert that this proposal will represent the long-anticipated remedy, providing an unparalleled level of transparency and accountability within the blockchain ecosystem. This shift holds the promise of achieving an impervious level of security, a milestone that has proven elusive until now. For a comprehensive analysis of this development, one can delve into the detailed report available on TronWeekly.