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Text | A Fat Cat, Guo Yuzhi As the second largest cryptocurrency project by market value, Ethereum has always attracted much attention. According to the plan, if Ethereum is upgraded to ETH2.0, the consensus mechanism will switch from POW to POS. This change of Ethereum is also considered by some to be a new opportunity for the crypto market. So, if ETH switches to POS, what possible impact will it have on the crypto market? ETH 2.0, could it cause a new fork? Some Twitter users believe that the switch of ETH 2.0 to the POS consensus mechanism will lead to a split in the community. The POS mechanism will certainly help improve the scalability of the chain, but it may not be unanimously supported by the entire community. If a fork occurs, some miners may turn to ETC instead of the new chain. So a Twitter user asked, "Where will all the hash power go when Ethereum switches to PoS?" Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith replied that when ETH moves to PoS, ETC will become the largest PoW Ethereum mining chain. Twitter user: ETH switching to POS will cause ETH to diverge Twitter user: ETH switching to POS will lead to a fork, miners will turn to ETC instead of the new chain Ethereum developer: When ETH moves to PoS, ETC will become the largest PoW Ethereum mining chain In fact, such views and voices have appeared in 2017. In a small sample survey in the past, 10 out of 28 people believed that ETH's conversion to POS would cause computing power to shift to ETC. Twitter small sample survey Which project will ETH's computing power turn to? Does ETC have a chance? Miners and mining machine manufacturers are probably the ones who have done the most research on mining and computing power. After ETH switches to POS, which project will the computing power most likely be transferred to? Guo Yuzhi, Operation Director of Panda Miner and Niubit, told Gyro Finance: It will take about two years for ETH to completely switch to POS . It is hard to say whether a phenomenal GPU mining project will emerge during this period to take over the market. If there is no phenomenal project like Ethereum, as ETH switches to POS, the growth rate of GPU mining computing power may slow down or even decline, and the existing GPU mining computing power will be divided up by many second- and third-tier small currencies. From the perspective of a mining machine manufacturer, Guo Yuzhi carefully analyzed what kind of projects could gain the support of miners . Looking at the digital currency mining market, a large number of currencies based on the POW mechanism have emerged in recent years. According to the characteristics of mining equipment, they can be simply divided into the following two categories:
- BTC series (including BTC, BCH, BSV), the mining equipment is Asic mining machine based on SHA-256 algorithm;
- ASIC miners with unique algorithms: LTC, ZEC, DASH, DCR, Grin (partial asic), etc.
GPU (Graphics Card) Mining Currency- Ethereum (mainly ETH, ETC has declined), mainly GPU mining machines;
- Other GPU mining currencies: Grin, Beam, XMR, AE and other small currencies.
Among them, Bitcoin and Ethereum, as the top two cryptocurrencies by market value, are in an absolute leading position in their respective categories and firmly occupy the vast majority of mining resources. After years of development, Bitcoin and Ethereum have become two phenomenal applications in the blockchain world (Bitcoin is the most secure and reliable decentralized digital currency; Ethereum is a decentralized world computer that provides conditions for the operation of smart contracts), and each has proved its development potential and reliable goal vision; because of this, Bitcoin and Ethereum can gain strong consensus in the market and a market value of hundreds of billions of US dollars (Bitcoin has a market value of 180 billion US dollars and ETH has a market value of 20 billion US dollars). Such a high market value has supported a large number of miners and created the current huge mining market, and the participation of miners in turn empowers and adds value to it. Therefore, there are some necessary prerequisites for a currency to gain the support of the majority of miners :
- In line with the core value of the blockchain world: sufficiently decentralized;
- It must be able to prove that the project's development goals are long-term and reliable, and have sufficient market potential;
- The algorithm and consensus mechanism must be reliable and stable, and there must be a benign mining incentive mechanism;
- Long-term and stable rising market value performance, etc.
Let’s go back to the question of “After ETH switches to POS, which project will the computing power be transferred to?” Ethereum has an absolute leading position in the graphics card mining market. Such a huge computing power is not something that a small currency in the current market can undertake alone. Although in the past two years, some new currencies with unique features such as Grin, Beam, RVN, AE, etc. have emerged in the current graphics card mining market, and new graphics card mining currencies are constantly being born. However, Guo Yuzhi believes that currently no currency has the ability or potential to reach the phenomenal level of Ethereum in the pure graphics card mining market. ETC upgrades to catch up with Ethereum?
According to bitinfocharts data, the current total network computing power of ETH is about 177T, which is more than 15 times that of ETC. However, due to the recent price increase of ETC, the mining income has increased and the total network computing power has increased .
bitinfocharts : ETH has more than 15 times the computing power of ETC bitinfocharts : ETC network computing power has increased slightly in the past three months
The current rise of ETC may be related to the expectation of the fork upgrade. On September 12, ETC will usher in an upgrade called " Atlantis ", and there will be another upgrade aimed at improving performance at the end of the year . According to media reports, the ETC community believes that after the Atlantis fork, the network performance of ETC will be comparable to that of ETH. The opinions of community members are still at the "opinion" stage before the upgrade is implemented, and the specific implementation effect needs to wait and see after the upgrade. But it is undeniable that there are more voices about ETC in the market recently, and ETC seems to have temporarily taken off the hat of "Doomsday Chariot".
But as Panda Miner’s Guo Yuzhi said, ETC is far from reaching the level of Ethereum in terms of consensus, application, and influence. If you really want to catch up, you still have a long way to go.
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