- The United States government should limit energy-intensive mining as per a study.
- Several mining pools saw a decline in activity after Ethereum’s switch.
Having seen Ethereum’s successful switch to the proof-of-stake consensus, miners were forced to explore other opportunities. Since Ethereum’s infancy, Ethereum’s developers have encouraged miners to switch to other proof-of-work platforms like Ethereum Classic. There has been a fair amount of discussion about proof-of-work blockchain networks prior to the Merge. However, a White House study on energy use suggested that the United States government should limit energy-intensive mining.
The research recommended restricting or outright prohibiting cryptocurrency mining due to its high energy use. The White House has said that high-energy consensus procedures, such as the proof of work approach, are off-limits.
Decrease in Profits
Several mining pools saw a decline in activity after Ethereum’s switch to the new consensus process. To a considerable extent, the miners rely on Ethereum Classic, Ergo, and Ravencoin’s blockchains. According to Forbes, the mining potential and expected gains make these projects a reasonable improvement over other possibilities. The day The Merge was completed witnessed a massive increase in hashrate for these coins. When talking about cryptocurrency mining and transaction processing, hash rate refers to the overall computing power being utilized by the network. This is an indication of the rate of mining on the blockchain network.
After the Ethereum Merge was finalized on September 17, the hashrates for Ethereum Classic, Ravencoin, and Ergo all increased by 124%, 98%, and 146%, respectively. Although these networks have mining potential, it is only capable of supporting a small percentage of what Ethereum did before The Merge. These three networks only provide around 28% of Ethereum’s pre-Merge hashrate of 867 (TH/s). Further, as the number of miners using these networks has expanded, earnings have dropped below their pre-Merge levels.
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