Dogecoin has become the second-largest PoW cryptocurrency by market capitalization

The meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE) rose to second place in market capitalization among blockchains using the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm after Ethereum migrated to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).

“Who would have thought this would happen? Congratulations to the community,” commented one of the coin enthusiasts.

#Dogecoin is now the second-biggest Proof of Work #Cryptocurency followed by #bitcoin.

Who would have thought that this would happen. Congrats #Dogefam #DogecoinToTheMoon #doge #btc #Ethereum pic.twitter.com/t3Jqd3Umm4

— Guhan💎🐾 (@TheDogeVampire) September 15, 2022

With a combined market capitalization of around $7.9 billion Dogecoin lags far behind Bitcoin — $378.2 billion. In third place on the ranking was Ethereum Classic (ETC) with a capitalization of $4.66 billion.

Several experts had suggested that it would be Ethereum Classic’s network that would be the main beneficiary of Ethereum’s transition to PoS. On September 15, Ethereum developers activated The Merge update, and the blockchain successfully migrated to the algorithm.

The ETC network’s hash rate in the 24 hours after the merge in Ethereum increased from about 65 TH/s to 290 TH/s. The daily rise amounted to almost 350%.

The cryptocurrency’s price during this period fell by 8.56%. Among leading PoW coins, Ravencoin (RVN) showed a deeper drop — 18.7%. At the same time, the network benefited from the influx of ex-Ethereum miners, which boosted the hash rate to about 21 TH/s.

PoW forks of blockchains aimed to compete for the freed Ethereum mining power after The Merge.

The most well-known such project, started by miner Chandler Guo, faced startup problems. As of writing, data from OKLink show activity on the chain with a total daily transaction volume of 3.63 million ETHW.     

The Poloniex exchange supported another fork — EthereumFair (ETF). The coin fell 86.5% in the last 24 hours, with trading volume around $417 000 (CoinGecko). 

ETF trades near $2.20. ETHW, traded as debt tokens, is around $13. The price of Ether is $1,470.

In light of Ethereum’s shift to PoS, environmentalists urged Bitcoin to take a similar step. The Environmental Working Group, a non-governmental environmental protection group, launched a $1 million advertising campaign, “Change the Code, Not the Climate”.

As reported, American lawmakers and regulators have threatened to ban mining of the first cryptocurrency due to the environmental impact of the PoW algorithm.

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