Ethereum Proof-of-Work Core Development Team Disbands: What Does it Mean for Crypto?

EthereumPoW Dissolves to Achieve Autonomy

The developers of the Ethereum proof-of-work (PoW) hard fork have decided to disband, aiming to achieve full autonomy. As a result, the EthereumPoW blockchain will continue to run on PoW consensus and decentralized governance, becoming a public chain without any deities.

To ensure the smooth transition, servers running EthereumPoW will be transferred to OneDAO, a decentralized protocol on the Harmony network. This is done with the purpose of providing transitional maintenance until long-term ecological partners are identified. Jadal Page, core developer of Ethereum PoW, said:

Prior to the completion of the Ethereum Merge upgrade in September 2022, EthereumPoW was hard forked from the Ethereum mainnet. This upgrade shifted the network from PoW to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, significantly reducing the energy usage of the mainnet by 99%.

EthereumPoW Token Support Cut by Grayscale Investments

The introduction of the Ethereum Proof-of-Stake consensus caused developers to be dissatisfied, while miners were frustrated over the loss of mining revenue. This led to the creation of EthereumPoW in order to preserve the original Ethereum.

On September 20th, Grayscale Investments, a well-known exchange-traded fund operator, decided to stop supporting post-Merge EthereumPoW tokens (ETHW). The company noted that ETHW has yet to develop “meaningful liquidity” and that its custodian does not support such tokens. This made it impossible for Grayscale to buy and sell ETHW tokens for its clients.

The highest ETHW tokens have ever been was $100 in August 2022 when they were first launched, however, they are now trading at $2.59. The total market capitalization of ETHW stands at $279 million.