Ethereum Classic Is Up Over 150% In July As ETH 2.0 Nears

Ethereum Classic is up over 150% in July as ETH 2.0 nears and a merge is slowly becoming reality.

After Ethereum (ETH) developers revealed the date for The Merge, interest in Ethereum Classic rose.

One of the best performing digital assets of the month was Ethereum Classic (ETC), whose value was up over 150% in July.

At the time of publication, the asset was down more than 11% over the previous 24 hours and was trading at $36.50.

When Ethereum (ETH) developers revealed the date for The Merge, interest in the asset surged, raising the possibility that miners would be kicked off the network.

Following the completion of its switch to a proof-of-stake network, Ethereum will no longer be mineable. Blocks that are validated using currently held ETH by validators will result in the creation of new ETH and staking rewards after the merge.

As a result of the 2016 DAO hack, Ethereum was hard-forked into ETC.

Ethereum Classic might attract more miners.

According to several experts, miners switching to Ethereum Classic may do so because the sister blockchain is allegedly compatible with Ethereum mining rigs.

At a recent event in Paris, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin first mentioned the possibility of miners switching to Ethereum Classic.

Developers and users who were unsure about the Merge were reportedly advised by Buterin to switch back to the Ethereum Classic chain. He stated:

“It’s a very welcoming community. If you like proof of work, you should go use Ethereum Classic, it’s a totally fine chain.”

According to Sami Kasab of Messari, the ETH ASIC mining device could only mine ETC as a proof-of-work digital asset.

He said:

Ethereum’s mining network is made up of two types of hardware: ASICs and GPUs. The problem with ASICs is that they can’t be repurposed for different applications besides mining ETH. Ethereum Classic is the only other PoW coin that can be mined with an ETH ASIC, since its hashing algorithm is compatible with ETH’s algorithm.

In the meantime, by making a $10 million investment in the ecosystem, Bitmain’s mining pool AntPool demonstrated its support for Ethereum Classic.

Miners might rebel

After the Merge is finished, miners may still operate on the proof-of-work version of Ethereum.

According to a Galois Capital survey, 33% of respondents believe that the Merge will result in the creation of two parallel networks for ETH1 (PoW) and ETH2 (POS).

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