Ethereum’s largest mining pool will stop supporting the PoW algorithm

This decision was made in line with the network’s planned transition to the PoS algorithm

22.08.2022 - 09:45

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What’s new? Bitfly, an operator of Ethereum’s largest mining pool called Ethermine, has announced that it will stop supporting the asset’s mining on the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm. The decision came in line with the network’s planned transition to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm. After PoW mining is completed, only withdrawal mode will be available on the pool. The countdown timer is located in miners’ personal accounts, they can continue mining Ethereum on PoW until the counter is zeroed out.

Announcement on the pool’s website

What awaits miners of the pool? PoW mining is completed, the Etheremine pool will be unavailable and all servers will be shut down. Bitfly has decided not to create a separate pool for any of the possible Ethereum forks. Instead, miners are encouraged to switch equipment to mine cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum Classic, Ravencoin, Ergo, or Beam. Throughout September 2022, one can mine on these pools with zero fees without any pool fees.

In March, Bitfly reported that it would stop providing services to customers from Russia and Belarus. The decision was made under the law on preventing money laundering in the financial markets. Afghanistan, Cambodia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and North Korea are also on Bitfly’s blocked countries list.

On August 12, the largest mining pool for anonymous cryptocurrency Monero called MineXMR was shut down. Before that, the team of the pool asked miners to reconfigure their equipment and switch to mining other assets. The official reason for the closure was not reported.

What is known about the Ethereum upgrade? The upgrade will increase Ethereum’s speed, efficiency, security, and scalability. Due to the algorithm change from PoW to PoS, the way coins are earned on the network will change from mining to staking. The upgrade may also result in a split into two networks, one of which will continue to run on PoW. Its release is scheduled for September 15, 2022.

For more details on the prospects of earning on the Ethereum network split, see GetBlock Magazine’s article.

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