Top Ethereum Miner Push For Proof-of-Work Protocol As Countdown To The Merge Approaches

Chandler Guo, a key crypto miner and investor on the Ethereum network, wants to fork Ethereum as the network plans to shift to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol.

The aim is to allow miners to continue on the Proof-of-Work (PoW) platform even after the transition to the PoS.

Miner Calls for PoW Clone

Since the Merge announcement, the countdown has been public knowledge, and the transition is gathering pace.

The second-largest cryptocurrency network is inching closer to the long-anticipated Merge, which will see it switch to the PoS consensus. However, an important personality in the Ethereum community has thrown in another challenge to the network. 

There is a high possibility that miners would choose to remain with the PoW consensus due to the agitation led by Chandler Guo.

According to reports, the miner declared last week on Twitter that he plans to fork the network’s blockchain to what he termed “ETH PoW.” The motive is to allow miners to continue operations on the soon-to-be departed protocol. 

The upcoming Merge will move the Ethereum network and all its operating systems from the PoW to the PoS consensus. This means that miners could no longer be allowed to verify transactions. 

Meanwhile, miners appear to be aggrieved by the move because of the huge investment they plunged into purchasing graphical processing units (GPU) chips to mine new blocks on the PoW.

Thus, developers have seen this coming because it will be difficult for miners to accept the proposed Merge due to being disadvantaged. And to counter the miner’s anticipated move, Ethereum developers have integrated a “difficulty bomb” to make it harder to create new blocks.

Furthermore, miners can clone the Ethereum network and develop their own version of the PoW consensus to continue their activities. What is yet to be ascertained is whether they can pool others to use the forked version of the protocol.

Back to Zero

Miners can use the forked chain to continue their PoW operations without the networks and applications that make the Ethereum network click. They would not be able to move any of the mainnets or tokens.

As a result, the cloned ETH PoW will have to start with zero infrastructures and other tools.

Furthermore, the clone PoW chain will have none of the native assets considered critical to its development. Things like stablecoins to support other decentralized finance (DeFi) applications will be absent, thus rendering the forked network less attractive.

Despite the setback for the fork version, there is a possibility that stablecoin entities can add support for the new platform.

According to the CTO of the parent company of Tether, Paolo Ardoino, the USDT would choose to support the PoS consensus over the clone PoW fork. Miners still have another option in place of the fork, the Ethereum Classic. 

Talk of a possible migration to the Ethereum Classic has been touted as the platform will not halt the use of the PoW consensus even after the completion of the Merge.