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Binance’s Ethereum PoW mining pool is proof of a friend indeed

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The Merge was successfully completed by Ethereum [ETH], but it also caused a significant industry rift. After switching from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS), the entire network underwent a significant transformation. Therefore, there was no longer a need for miners.

This did not sit well with them, and many people developed a strong desire to keep PoW mining. With it in place, a number of platforms that had previously rejected this chain made the decision to offer support. Through the launch of the Ethereum Proof-of-Work [ETHW] Mining Pool, Binance increased the visibility of ETHW.

By trading volume, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world unveiled its most recent project on Twitter. Binance even made the decision to charge no pool fees for mining ETHW for any of its ETHW Pool customers.

Source

It should be noted that the $0 pool charge deal is only valid through October 29th. This offer will expire once the promotion time was through.

Additionally, Binance clarified the situation by asserting that the most recent news did not portend the listing of ETHW. The announcement stated,

“In order to protect Binance users, ETHW will go through the same strict listing review process as Binance does for any other coin/token. Supporting ETHW on Binance Pool does not guarantee the listing of ETHW. Binance does not guarantee any listings as per our internal policy.”

Only withdrawals were permitted for ETHW on the exchange, according to Binance. Users were able to exchange their ETHW for BUSD and USDT, however deposits were blocked.

EthereumPoW’s success rate

The past few days have been quite helpful to ETHW. while the market as a whole was in a downturn. It seems that EthereumPoW was making gains. The asset’s price was $12.60 at the time of writing, with a rise of 18.00% over the last 24 hours. It should be noted that ETHW was able to climb to a week high of $13.78.

Dogecoin Earns 2nd Largest Proof-of-Work Crypto Title as Merge Completes

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Dogecoin (DOGE), which is modeled on the popular “doge” Internet joke, is symbolized by a Shiba Inu. The open-source cryptocurrency was developed by Billy Markus in December 2013 and split off from Litecoin.

DOGE initially circulated as a humorous internet joke. Long before the coin gained popularity, the program’s original developer stopped working on it and sold his coins.

On Reddit and Twitter, it was initially used to tip artists. The real DOGE success only emerged once Elon Musk started talking about it. The coin uses proof-of-work as of right now. Many people have criticized PoW for its energy-centric nature.

Now that Ethereum transitioned to PoS, Dogecoin earns a new title.

Dogecoin is the second largest PoW crypto

Following the update to the Ethereum network’s proof-of-stake protocol on September 15, Dogecoin (DOGE) is currently the second-largest proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrency in terms of market value.

DOGE, a popular memecoin, is still comfortably ahead of the third-place PoW cryptocurrency Ethereum Classic (ETC), which has a market cap of $4.69 billion, as well as Litecoin (LTC), which has a market cap of $4.01 billion, and Monero (XMR), which has a market cap of $2.65 billion. Of course, Bitcoin (BTC) continues to be far ahead of Dogecoin, which has a market cap of $7.

However, DOGE could also soon find itself in a race with ETHPoW, which is presently trading at $13.64 and is the Ethereum PoW hard fork chain that will resume mining.

The move by Ethereum to a PoS consensus mechanism may have mounting tension on PoW-powered crypto networks to make a similar move.

The Dogecoin Foundation has been discussing moving DOGE to a proof-of-stake algorithm since Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum and adviser to the Dogecoin Foundation, initially suggested it in September 2021. The proposed transition will earn DOGE quite some popularity in the crypto space.

Is Bitcoin reaping more than what’s being sowed?

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The crypto-verse has come to recognize organizations that acceptance and regulation go hand in hand. Neither the internet nor fiat are older than bitcoin. However, the crypto-verse draws a wide range of people and organizations into the market. Others have had a sporadic attitude toward the industry, while some have remained involved throughout. However, it appeared that MicroStrategy had no choice because its executive chairman Michael Saylor was all-in on the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman, MicroStrategy

Saylor’s regular purchases and recommendations demonstrated his propensity for the asset. Saylor now claims that he doesn’t think the Bitcoin network has a bad influence on the environment, further solidifying his position in the crypto community.

In a letter published on Wednesday, the Bitcoin maximalist, MicroStrategy executive chairman, and alleged tax evader said that mining is “the most efficient, cleanest industrial use of electricity.” According to him, the output cost of the Bitcoin mechanism is 100 times higher than the input cost.

Bitcoin’s annual energy consumption

According to estimates, Bitcoin uses about as much energy per year as a small nation. However, backers of the first cryptocurrency and its power-hungry proof-of-work consensus algorithm claim that a large portion of the energy used are generated by renewable resources like wind and solar.

Miners compete with one another under the PoW paradigm to add new blocks to the chain. However, other well-known blockchains are avoiding PoW. The proof-of-stake consensus technique that Ethereum will implement in its upcoming Merge upgrade is meant to considerably lessen those environmental issues.

In Saylor’s opinion, it’s not that easy. The “specialized energy” that currently powers these devices will switch to “generic computers,” he claimed, dispersing efficiencies that won’t reduce carbon emissions. As a founding member of the BTC Mining Council, Saylor previously vowed to protect Bitcoin against energy skeptics.

Saylor stated that because proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrencies are “usually unregistered securities,” regulators, lawmakers, and the general public are often “distracted” by the bad perceptions surrounding PoW mining. At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) was priced at $20,010.78 with a slight hindering drop of 0.14% over the last 24 hours.

Ethereum to get ‘Forked’ 24 hours after Merge

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Ethereum has been the talk of the town ever since the transition to Proof of Stake (PoS) was announced. The entire community has been keeping track of all the events leading up to the same. While the majority of the industry seemed to be anticipating a seamless transition, a few of them were hoping for another delay. However, it appears that everything has gone according to plan, and all that is left is for the PoS to launch.

The Ethereum PoW community said that a “hard fork is inevitable” back in mid-August, and that work was already being done to make the hard fork successful. According to information provided at the time, the community had already removed the difficulty time bomb, changed the Chain ID to give replay protection, and finished setting up the testnet, advancing the plans.

Source: Twitter

The team has now revealed the precise date of the fork’s formal introduction, which is the most recent development. The hard fork will happen one day after Ethereum’s Merge materializes, according to their most recent Twitter thread. Notably, the latter is scheduled for September 15, implying that the former would likely be launched on 16 September 2022.

The Ethereum PoW team tweeted to elaborate further on this,

“ETHW mainnet will happen within 24 hours after the Merge. The exact time will be announced 1 hour before launch with a countdown timer and everything including final code, binaries, config files, nodes info, RPC, explorer, etc. will be made public when the time’s up.”

Furthermore, the block height of the Merge block “plus” 2048 EMPTY blocks will be the starting point for the mainnet. As a result, the first block on ETHW that might include any transactions will be the Merge block + 2049.

The company also disclosed that the initial mining difficulty will not be less than ~220 T, which translates to 15 TH/s in terms of hashrate.

Ethereum miners to lose significance

Miners will become less important on the Ethereum network after the Merge. Ethereum miners made $1 billion more than Bitcoin miners did the previous year. The advantage held by Ethereum miners has persisted from this year to the present. However, by mid-September, the income figure is expected to decrease to zero. Colin Wu tweeted the precise numbers after tallying them up,

ETH miners earned 11 billion, 18 billion, and 2 billion in 2022, 2021, and 2020, compared to 10 billion, 17 billion, and 5 billion for BTC miners. Ethereum miners’ income will likely be reduced to 0 after this week.

Source: Twitter

Ethereum co-founder urges clients to upgrade; Details

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The Ethereum [ETH] network has gained attention in the cryptocurrency community as a result of the Merge. The developers have put a tremendous amount of effort into the background work as the community gets ready to switch to Proof-of-Stake [PoS]. For a while now, the ETH community has been eagerly awaiting the Merge. However, the community might be experiencing yet another development as a result of this network-wide upgrade.

Prior to the Merge, those operating nodes on the blockchain have been asked by ETH developer Vitalik Buterin to upgrade their clients.

Source: Twitter

Buterin urged individuals operating Ethereum nodes to upgrade their clients to meet the necessary requirements even before the Merge takes place in a tweet on Monday.

The co-founder of the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency stated that even though the Beacon Chain hard fork would happen on September 6, the Merge would take place between September 10 and September 20, thus all nodes should have their clients updated before the Merge to guarantee a seamless transition.

A node is a computer network that runs the client software, whereas a client is a program necessary to allow Ethereum nodes to read blocks on the ETH blockchain and smart contracts.

The Merge’s first stage, the Bellatrix update, is slated to be live on September 6 at 11:34:47 UTC.

In a blog post, last week, the ETH foundation stated,

“Following years of hard work, Ethereum’s proof-of-stake upgrade is finally here! The successful upgrade of all public testnets is now complete, and The Merge has been scheduled for the Ethereum mainnet.”

The much-awaited transition from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus has numerous good effects on the network, including a 99.95% reduction in energy consumption, which has been of particular interest to many ETH supporters like Mark Cuban.

Here’s how Ethereum merge can change the idea of decentralization

The system will be negatively destabilized by the upcoming merge. ETH recently said that between September 6 and September 20, 2022, it will switch from “proof-of-work” (PoW) to “proof-of-stake” (PoS). This transition is known as a ‘merge”.

There will be significant reverberations in the area after the merge. The market value of mining Ethereum (Eth) is projected to be $19 billion, and merge is anticipated to completely shut down the industry.

Although there is a lot of excitement surrounding it, blockchain activists are worried about the occasion. According to them, merge based on PoS will put an end to “decentralization of network” and eventually result in centralization.

Entities with more tokens are given precedence over those with fewer tokens under the PoS mechanism. Larger investors have bigger profit margins, thus practically speaking, they would keep their coins to increase the manufacturing capacity. A bigger stakeholder will therefore develop more quickly than a smaller one. It would soon become unaffordable to participate in the mining business, driving away small partners and promoting centralization.

However, at the time of writing, Ethereum (ETH) was priced at $1,594.70 with a daily rise of 0.36%.

Is Ethereum losing support for the PoW hard fork?

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For a number of reasons, the Ethereum [ETH] network has been the talk of the crypto community. The Merge is unquestionably one of them, but there is also talk about the possibility of a hard fork. The Merge would make miners’ significance or importance to the Ethereum network irrelevant. Chandler Guo, a Chinese cryptocurrency miner, made the decision to defend these miners because this would disturb the livelihood of many people. After the Merge, Guo has been strongly drawn to the concept of forking the Ethereum network. While some people continue to doubt its occurrence, others have expressed optimism. The biggest ETH mining pool, however, disagreed with Guo’s proposal.

The network’s PoW mining phase has come to an end, according to a blog post by Ethermine, the biggest Ethereum mining pool. According to the site, a “dedicated mining pool for any of the planned PoW fork” will not be available.

Platforms such as Poloniex, BitMEX, and others have endorsed the PoW hard fork. However, the vast majority of them have avoided doing so. For those planning to adopt a PoW chain, several of them have been promoting the usage of Ethereum Classic (ETC).

Additionally, Etheremine advised its miners to join the Ethereum Classic pool. Even better, the company provided a 0% fee on its mining pools for Ravencoin, Ergo, and Beam in September.

It appears that smaller mining pools were less likely to fork the network than larger ones. An executive from the Canadian mining pool company Flexpool had previously stated,

“It’s like a typewriter company. No one is buying typewriters anymore, so you have to shift into other businesses using the capital you made in typewriters.”

Ethereum miners’ Guide

The platform made note of how, after the Merge, mining Ether using GPUs or ASICs will be impossible. After the network’s PoW phase is through, the mining pool will switch to withdraw-only mode, miners were informed.

Ethermine went into more detail on what miners should do, and said,

“In order to receive a final payout of your unpaid balance, it will be possible to trigger a manual payout on your individual Dashboard page. It is possible to request a manual payout if your unpaid balance exceeds 0.005 ETH. For manual payouts, the transaction fee will be deducted from your unpaid balance.”

At the time of writing, Ethereum (ETH) was priced at $1738.08 with a daily drop of 0.24%.

New York Senate Passes a Bill to Ban Bitcoin Mining Citing Environmental Concerns

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The New York State Senate approved a bill targeting proof-of-work (PoW) bitcoin mining early Friday morning. The move is an approach to correct some of the environmental concerns surrounding cryptocurrencies.

The law, which was passed by the state Assembly last month, would put a two-year embargo on any upcoming carbon-based fuel-powered PoW mining firms in the Empire State.

Existing mining businesses or those in the process of renewing their permits, on the other hand, would be allowed to keep functioning. The bill received a 36-27 vote in the Senate.

According to the bill’s Democratic sponsor, Sen. Kevin Parker, there would be currently only one facility in operation that would be unaffected by the legislation. He also suggested that one pending application could be placed on the table.

New York state will study the environmental impacts of mining

The state will perform a study on the potential environmental implications of proof-of-work mining during the ban.

Many expected the bill to never come out of the committee when the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee failed to discuss it during its final meeting of the session, as it did last year’s version.

Sen. Todd Kaminsky, the committee’s chairman, expressed concern in May that the bill may have “deleterious economic repercussions for New York” if it is perceived as anti-crypto.

Because of the considerable low cost of hydroelectric energy, New York has long been eyed as a desirable location for crypto mining firms to set up plants. In the past years, mining companies have reused decommissioned coal power plants. One such facility, for example, was rebuilt by Greenidge Generation to run on natural gas.

Mining companies in New York have threatened to leave if the moratorium is implemented, noting the relative ease of doing business in more mining-friendly states like Texas.

Will EU’s potential ban on PoW lead to centralization? netizens ask

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European Union or EU’s latest draft proposal that is seeking to regulate virtual currencies known as Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), is back with a provision calling for reducing the usage of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies.

The early version of the MiCA draft took a conservative approach advocating an absolute ban of crypto services that depend on environmentally unsustainable consensus mechanisms beginning in January 2025. But the provision was later removed after receiving industry backlash.

With regards to the modified draft, the EU parliamentarian, currently overseeing the MiCA legislative framework, Dr. Stefan Berger, said at the time that the paragraph in question had been scrapped, but that a final decision had not yet been made.

According to the provision, if a proof-of-work consensus mechanism is operating on a small scale, it is exempted from having to meet sustainability standards. But the question remains as to what qualifies a small-scale operation.

It also says that energy-intensive crypto assets that are already in use in the EU prior to the legislation, would be required to “set up and maintain a phased rollout plan to ensure compliance with such requirements” as specified in another part of the framework.

The latest news cooked up a storm in the crypto community.

EU’s draft raised so many questions

Paolo Ardoino who is the CTO of Bitfinex and Tether took to Twitter saying such a potential POW ban runs the risk of Centralization and this is why his firms are investing in companies that are focused on mining diversification.

One user in response to Arduino’s tweet questioned how a close circle of 30 people will decide the fate of millions of investors behind closed doors. “Are we kidding? this is a dictatorship,” he slammed. To which the exec replied, “Yup. That’s why I’m skeptical. But hysteria, lobbying, and interests can get us to unwanted results.”

Some even called on citizens in the EU to reach out to their parliamentarians to oppose the proposal. Pierre Person, a Paris-based legislator and member of the Law Commission, criticized the newly added note in a lengthy Twitter thread.

Through a series of tweets, Person warned that the prohibition of crypto-assets that rely on Proof-of-Work protocols would lead to exclusion of Bitcoin and Ether from Europe. “It would be more relevant to ban mining from fossil energies and promote players who turn to surplus renewable energy to improve the profitability of these means of production,” he added.