Ethereum Miners Abandon Ship Less Than 24 Hours After the Merge

Ethereum Miners , Abandon Ship Less Than, 24 Hours After the Merge.

CoinDesk reports that Ethereum miners are switching to alternative coins, crushing mining profitability.

On September 15, the world’s second-largest blockchain network switched its consensus algorithm to proof-of-stake from proof-of-work.

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According to CoinDesk, the decision was meant to boost efficiency and lower energy consumption.

The software update was dubbed "the Merge.".

Graphics processing units (GPU) mining is dead less than 24 hours after the Merge, Ben Gagnon, chief mining officer at bitcoin miner Bitfarms, via Twitter.

The only coins showing profit have no market cap or liquidity, Ben Gagnon, chief mining officer at bitcoin miner Bitfarms, via Twitter.

The computing power, or hashrate, used to mine PoW altcoins like Ethereum classic and Ravencoin doubled in just hours after the Merge.

At the same time, difficulty also increased, meaning that miners are less likely to successfully mine a block.

According to data from Minerstat, the price or Ethereum Classic tumbled from about 70 cents down to about 11 cents in 24 hours.

As suspected, too many ETH miners switched over to ETC, Ethan Vera, chief operations officer of mining services firm Luxor Technologies, via Twitter.

Even running new generation hardware at sub 3 cent power is not profitable on ETC now … That electricity price is much lower than what households in the U.S. pay, and even to what industrial consumers like bitcoin miners pay in several parts of the country, Ethan Vera, chief operations officer of mining services firm Luxor Technologies, via Twitter