12 Sep 2022
Ethereum miners are migrating to Ethereum Classic
The soon-to-be-obsolete ETH miners are looking for alternative cryptocurrencies to mine. One of these is ETC, whose hashrate has more than doubled since July.
Ethereum mining is a significant industry. The total industry revenue was $18 billion in 2021, more than bitcoin mining’s $17 billion.If everything goes according to the plan, the merge will take place on Wednesday evening/Thursday morning and replace ETH miners with validators. ETH miners have invested billions of dollars in GPU mining rigs. These rigs can’t mine bitcoin, so the soon-to-be-obsolete ETH miners are looking for other tasks to direct their rigs’ computing power to.One of the biggest alternative cryptocurrencies ETH miners migrate to is Ethereum Classic (ETC). It has seen a 150% increase in its hashrate since July.The price of ETC has also pumped by 171% since July, as traders seem to speculate that ETH miners will attempt to pump the prices of other GPU mineable coins when they get kicked off the Ethereum network.Other significant cryptocurrencies that ETH may switch to include Ravencoin, which has also seen a significant increase in both its hashrate and price as the merge got closer. A group of miners also pushed for an Ethereum hard fork, but it has struggled to maintain its momentum as of late.Still, these alternative cryptocurrencies are too small to absorb a significant share of the ETH hashrate. Hashrate Index estimated that alternative cryptocurrencies could only take on 15% of ETH’s hashrate before rendering mining unprofitable.