EthereumPoW (ETHW) Coin Review

Miners formed the most vocal group opposing the transition from PoW to PoS. They had heavily invested in mining equipment that could take a year or longer to see returns. The sudden change introduced by The Merge wasn't part of their playbook. Resolute in their stance, they continued with the legacy PoW framework and initiated an Ethereum hard fork, christening it EthereumPoW (ETHW).

Source: ethereumpow.org

This development brought three Ethereum-branded coins to the trading floors: the original Ethereum now on PoS, Ethereum Classic (a 2016 PoW hard fork), and the freshly minted EthereumPoW. Essentially, miners unwilling to offload their gear were now faced with a choice between the last two, as their existing ASICs were compatible. A minor equipment tweak to cater to the new coin and connecting to a fresh mining pool was all they needed.

Who's Behind EthereumPoW?

EthereumPoW was established by an initiative group largely composed of miners, investors, and crypto influencers, more popularly known as ETHW Core. Although most members of the ETHW Core chose not to disclose their involvement in the team, it's known that influential miner and crypto investor Chandler Guo and TRON founder Justin Sun were among them. However, Sun later left ETHW Core and shifted allegiance to another fork's supporters.

Other Reasons for EthereumPoW's Emergence

Beyond an affinity for conventional mining techniques, a sizeable faction of the Ethereum crypto circle staunchly believed that, from a decentralization standpoint, PoW holds an edge over PoS. In PoS realms, coin majority holders, or the so-called ‘whales,' wield disproportionate influence. Vitalik Buterin, having pre-mined a significant chunk of Ether during Ethereum 1.0's inaugural phase, emerged even stronger post the Ethereum 2.0 transition. He, along with a few associates, commanded the lion's share of coins, and post-The Merge, through nodes under their purview, tightened their grip on the network's reins. In contrast, PoW networks continued to champion the decentralization ethos Satoshi Nakamoto had envisaged.

Another factor driving EthereumPoW's inception was the miners' hesitancy to pivot to Ethereum Classic (ETC) mining, especially given ETC's smeared reputation following multiple successful “51% attacks” back in 2020.

ETHW Mining

GPU and ASIC miners are rewarded with ETHW coins from the network for creating new blocks and validating transactions.

To start GPU mining, you need to use software such as NBMiner, T-Rex Miner, GMiner, PhoenixMiner, BMiner, LoLMiner, etc. After that, you'll have to set up an ETHW wallet and choose a mining pool like Binance Pool, F2pool, etc. Setting up ASIC equipment is even more straightforward.

Buying, Trading, and Storing ETHW

ETHW is listed on many CEX exchanges like OKX, WhiteBIT, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Poloniex, CryptoCom, HitBTC, and some DEX exchanges such as Uniswap. A few regional crypto exchanges also offer trading pairs for ETHW not only with BTC or stablecoins (like USDT or USDC) but also with local fiat currencies such as Euro (EUR), Turkish Lira (TRY), Indian Rupee (IDR), and Brazilian Real (BRL).

You can store ETHW not only on exchange wallets but also on universal wallets like Guarda, Math Wallet, BitKeep, OKX Wallet, Trust Wallet, or hardware wallets like Trezer. Unfortunately, MetaMask does not support ETHW.

Issues with EthereumPOW (ETHW)

The launch of the new EthereumPoW network did not go as smoothly as planned. The hard fork encountered technological issues arising from certain partners. Moreover, on September 18, 2022, a breach of a smart contract on Omni Bridge was detected. A hacker managed to steal nearly $260,000 worth of ETHW. The stolen funds were funneled through the Gnosis bridge, doubling the messages in the PoW chain. This event significantly impacted ETHW's value.

Additionally, during the initial deployment of the new network, numerous user complaints were recorded about their inability to connect to the EthereumPoW servers.

Another blow came when Justin Sun announced his switch from the ETHW Core to another project's team.