In the run-up to the activation of The Merge, the hashrate of Ethereum Classic (ETC) reached a record high of 46 TH/s, according to Coin Metrics.
For comparison, the Ethereum (ETH) network hash rate stands at 910 TH/s—a figure roughly 19 times higher than the ‘original Ether’.
Mining revenue per hash power (hashprice) for Ethereum remains significantly higher — by 95%. In other words, mining ETH is much more profitable.
The rise in hashrate is evidently linked to Ethereum miners switching to mine the ‘sibling’ cryptocurrency in the run-up to The Merge update.
Recently the BTC.com mining pool, affiliated with Bitmain, offered clients three months of commission-free mining.
As the ETH 2.0 merge is approaching, https://t.co/38N9uRCNSj will launch a three-month ETC mining «zero fee» activity on September 1 of 2022 to reward new and regular users for their support of https://t.co/38N9uRCNSj.#EthereumClassic #EthereumMerge https://t.co/gd1v0S8xfG pic.twitter.com/XTfDoG8sDg
— BTC.com (@btccom_official) August 31, 2022
The Merge activation is expected to take place around September 15. The move to Proof-of-Stake will make mining Ether on graphics cards and ASIC devices like Antminer E9 impossible.
In July, the Bitmain-affiliated mining pool AntPool announced investments of $10 million in the Ethereum Classic ecosystem.
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