ETHPoW, a separate Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain forked from Ethereum’s, went live on September 15. However, the chain suffered from technical problems after the launch, which put downward pressure on the price of its token; ETHW.
ETHW Price Drops 65% Amid “ChainID” Fiasco
The price of ETHW is down 65% since the launch of ETHPoW to around $14 on September 16, according to CoinMarketCap. At its lowest point, the token was changing hands for $9.50.
The losses coincided with a technical problem related to the “ETHPoW” ChainID.
ChainIDs are identifiers that help users identify one blockchain from another. Therefore, ETHPoW required a new ChainID to separate its transaction data from the original Ethereum blockchain after The Merge, otherwise it risked creating duplicate transactions.
Lol EthPow miners set to wrong chainID, so they’re mining testnet https://t.co/IichaPURjr
— David Trrrrrrr (@daveytea) September 15, 2022
The team behind ETHPoW announced on September 15 that its unique ChainID is 10001. However, data from Chainlist shows that a cryptocurrency project called Smart Bitcoin Cash, operating under the ticker BCHT, had the same ID. This issue caused errors in the Metamask cryptocurrency wallet.
The ETHPoW team acknowledged the issue and adjusted the ChainID later on September 15. However, several miners appear to have withdrawn despite some major pools continuing to mine the PoW chain.
Notably, the ETHPoW hash rate fell to 66.64 TH/s on September 16, after having reached a high of 80.56 TH/s on the same day.
By comparison, the hash rate of Ethereum Classic (ETC), another PoW alternative for Ethereum miners, was 234.56 TH/s on September 16, up from its peak of nearly 310.5 TH/s the day before.
ETHW Lists on Some Exchanges Despite Concerns
Eric Wall, chief investment officer at cryptocurrency investment firm Arcane Assets, he pointed that ETHPoW miners would not be able to sustain the chain at current token prices. He explained:
“Daily rewards are 13,100 ETH, $354K instead of $20M. There is no way miners can “keep mining” the ETHPoW chain, no matter how the difficulty is set. There just aren’t enough rewards in the system for paying electricity bills.
However, ETHW has been listed on some of the major cryptocurrency exchanges, such as FTX and Huobi. Additionally, BitTrue has also inserted an ETHW-based liquidity staking service that offers depositors an annual return of 6%.
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