Scheduled for next September, The Merge will take Ethereum into another world. From Proof of Work, the Ethereum blockchain must move to Proof of Stake, mainly for ecological reasons. A feature that will then sound the death knell for miners on the Ethereum blockchain. Unless a fork intervenes. Because if the ecological stakes are advanced, the economic stakes are huge too.
Ex-ETH miner offers Proof of Work fork!
If the idea is not new, the miner is old Hongcai Guo puts it back in the middle of the chessboard, just over a month before the big crypto event of the year: The Merge. If the Ethereum blockchain currently works under the Proof of Work protocol, the merger should allow a switch to the Proof of Stake protocol, which is 99% less energy-intensive. But if the ecological progress is great, this change changes the business model of many companies. As we will detail below.
Good to know: A fork designates a bifurcation of the blockchain. Disagreements between members of the same community may lead to the emergence of a fork.
To support the movement, an organization was created under the nameEthereumPoW. This is specifically aimed at raising money for lobbying around this fork. As of this writing, the wallet has a balance of 1.49 ETH. Proof of more than limited enthusiasm.
Crypto-assets are a risky investment.
Idea supported by Justin Sun!
Despite the relative failure of this donation campaign, the pro-forks have a few tricks up their sleeves. Starting with the support of Justin Sun, co-founder of the TRON network who says he is in favor of this hard fork project. The Chinese entrepreneur, whose company would have almost a million ETH, also promises to invest some of this capital for the benefit of the new ecosystem that may emerge. In any case, the Poloniex exchange, in which Sun is the main investor, already offers two new trading pairs EHS and ETHW. Two characters that can only be used for a fork.
For his part, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain, believes that a potential fork would have little impact on the network. Above all, the Russian-Canadian developer emphasizes the general consensus among Ethereum users regarding the merger.
My understanding, after talking to many people in the Ethereum ecosystem, is that the support for proof of concept is unanimous.
During a conference at the Blockchain Week South Korea, Buterin pointed out that the “pro-forks” are for many “foreigners of the Ethereum ecosystem”. Calling them opportunities, Buterin points out that they are “willing to make a quick buck” on new assets.
A little over a week ago, a Twitter survey by the investment fund Galois Capital showed that 33% of respondents believed that the merger between the PoW blockchain and the PoS blockchain could lead to a hard fork. A majority nevertheless agreed on the hypothesis of a smooth transition from PoW to PoS.
Major economic issues!
Behind the idea of this fork, there are clearly economic interests at all levels. And especially for companies that market mining equipment. Therefore, the fork application is supported by various Chinese hardware manufacturers. Manufacturers who were already adversely affected by the ban on mining in China a few months ago.
And to get the support of new supporters, Hongcai Guo seems to be ready for anything. This old Chinese miner, at the origin of the idea of the fork, promises a reward to anyone who tries to follow him. And those rewards could be signs of the new encryption. As well as converting “old ETH” to “new ETH”. If the ad is anything to go by, it’s a big risk. As if the fork were to be validated, the risk of seeing the new token collapse over time cannot be excluded. In fact, forks are rarely in favor of the new token, due to a lack of sufficient adoption. And in the context of mining, the flow of transactions on a blockchain remains a key element.
Let us recall in passing, the Ethereum network has already experienced a fork in its recent history. After TheDAO hack, the separation of the blockchain gave birth to Ethereum Classic. A blockchain that is still working according to the Proof of Work and which has already seen the arrival of a large number of miners who anticipated The Merge. Because after the bifurcation of Ethereum towards the Proof of Stake, Ethereum Classic will be the third PoW blockchain on the market. Just behind Dogecoin and the unbeatable Bitcoin.
Also read: What The Merge will bring to the Ethereum network.
