Ethereum PoW Tokens Dropped Ahead of Merge

A large cryptocurrency exchange MEXC announced the swap of Ethereum coins into forked tokens ETHS and ETHW at 1:1 rate. One of the tokens will be converted into upgraded Ethereum without the PoW consensus and the other one will represent the PoW chain with the most hashrate.

The initiative was implemented to help users avoid risks caused by market volatility when the hard fork happens. By avoiding the volatility spike caused by the variety of forked Ethereum coins, investors' funds will be put into the safest option available on the market and sorted by the mining power around it.

Related

Sun, 08/07/2022 - 09:01

Will Ethereum Be Harmed by New Forks? Vitalik Buterin Shares His Take

Alex Dovbnya

Other exchanges have also joined the initiative and started offering migration tokens for those who are ‌willing to stay on the main chain or move their funds towards the PoW fork of the coin.

At the same time, users noticed that the withdrawal of tokens on various platforms is disabled, which raises safety questions in case something goes wrong for whatever reason.

Prior to the merge, more users and miners are getting ready to move their funds to alternative L1 options with the PoW consensus available. As for now, the biggest heir of Ethereum's huge hashrate is Ethereum Classic, which already saw almost a 50% increase in the power of the network.

The spike in the mining power also caused a price rally of ETC, with the asset gaining more than 150% to its value during the recovery rally. Industry experts believe that the coin will face another growth cycle post merge if Ethereum hard forks will not meet the expectations of the market.