Ethereum Classic mining may have been pushed to the side with more crypto enthusiasts wondering how to mine Ethereum. But this may soon change.
Ethereum Classic has recorded a notable 50% surge in its price ahead of the upcoming Ethereum 2.0 release date.
With the Ethereum merge moving the blockchain over to Ethereum staking, ETC mining has become a potential avenue for miners to shift to if they want to continue with proof-of-stake.
How To Mine Ethereum Classic
To get involved in Ethereum Classic mining, you'll first need to acquire your crypto mining equipment - most likely a GPU.
After this, you should obtain a wallet address to track your mining revenue, before installing the relevant ETC mining software, which includes Gminer, and NBminer.
Once configured, you will be ready to mine Ethereum Classic.
Why Are Ethereum Miners Moving To Ethereum Classic?
Created after the Ethereum DAO hack in 2016, Ethereum Classic has seen a resurgence in the past few weeks, all thanks to the upcoming Ethereum Merge.
An air of uncertainty looms over several Ethereum miners due to its planned merge scheduled for September this year. Several users/miners have expressed their scepticism about the upcoming merge, which transforms Ethereum's core functionality from Proof-of-work to Proof-of-stake consensus.
The miners believe that once Ethereum switches to PoS, they will not be able to mine blocks anymore, which may render their mining gear insignificant. Numerous users have urged Buterin to reconsider and introduce a fork mechanism rather than transitioning the entire blockchain to PoS.
A further reason for the ETC shift comes after comments from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. He advised miners to migrate to Ethereum Classic mining if they are not "convinced" by the upcoming, inevitable Ethereum merge.
"It’s a very welcoming community," Buterin said at ETHCC. "If you like proof of work, you should go use Ethereum Classic. It’s a totally fine chain."
However, the Ethereum Classic mining migration has helped its price skyrocket 50% in the last week. At press time, ETC is up 11% today and is sitting at $37.79.
However, a faction of the Ethereum community is vying for an Ethereum hard fork deployment to retain the blockchain's PoW consensus intact. But Ethereum's co-founder Vitalik Buterin had dismissed the possibility adding that the merge will be executed between September 10-20 and no new forks will be introduced.
Several crypto exchanges have already prepared a comprehensive plan to support miners and help them acquire the ETH PoW forked token if they are born during the merge process.